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lucilla, godolphin, and the moorish girl. — p. 470. 










3Ti)e ILortr Hatton ISiitton. 


GODOLPHIN 


BY 

HR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART. 



“Sleep, 

Voluptuous Caesar, — and security 
Seize on thy powers!” 

Ben Jonson, Fall of Sejanus. 


COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME 



PHILADELPHIA 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 

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COUNT ALFRED D’ORSAY. 


Mi dear Count d’Orsay, — 

When the parentage of Godolphin was still uncon- 
fessed and unknown, you were pleased to encourage his 
first struggles with the world. Now, will you permit the 
father he has just discovered to reintroduce him to your 
notice ? I am sorry to say, however, that my unfilial 
offspring, having been so long disowned, is not sufficiently 
grateful for being acknowledged at last : he says mat he 
belongs to a very numerous family, and, wishing to be 
distinguished from his brothers, desires not only to re- 
claim your acquaintance, but to borrow your name. 
Nothing less will content his ambition than the most 
public opportunity in his power of parading his obliga- 
tions to the most accomplished gentleman of our time. 

( v ) 


1 * 


vi 


DEDICATION 


Will you, then, allow him to make his new appearance in 
the world under your wing, and thus suffer the son as well 
as the father to attest the kindness of your heart and to 
boast the honor of your friendship ? 

Believe me, 

My dear Count d’Orsay, 

With the sincerest regard, 

Yours, very faithfully and truly, 


E. B. L. 


PREFACE. 


In the Prefaces to this edition of my works, I have 
occasionally so far availed myself of that privilege of self- 
criticism which the French comic writer, Mons. Picord, 
maintains or exemplifies in the collection of his plays, — 
as, if not actually to sit in judgment on my own perform 
ances, still to insinuate some excuse for their faults by ex- 
tenuatory depositions as to their character and intentions. 
Indeed, a writer looking back to the past, is unconsciously 
inclined to think that he may separate himself from those 
children of his brain which have long gone forth to the 
world; and though he may not expatiate on the merits 
his paternal affection would ascribe to them, that he may 
speak at least of the mode in which they were trained and 
reared — of the hopes he cherished, or the objects he enter- 
tained, when he finally dismissed them to the opinions of 
others and the ordeal of Fate or Time. 

For my part, I own that even when I have thought but 
little of the value of a work, I have always felt an interest 
in the author’s account of its origin and formation, and, 
willing to suppose that what thus affords a gratification 
to my own curiosity, may not be wholly unattractive to 
others, I shall thus continue from time to time to play 

( vii) 


viii 


PREFACE. 


the Showman to my own machinery, and explain the prin- 
ciple of the mainspring and the movement of the wheels. 

This novel was begun somewhere in the third year of 
my authorship, and completed in the fourth. It was, 
therefore, composed almost simultaneously with Eugene 
Aram, and afforded to me at least some relief from the 
gloom of that village tragedy. It is needless to observe 
how dissimilar in point of scene, character, and fable, the 
one is from the other: yet they are alike in this — that 
both attempt to deal with one of the most striking prob- 
lems on the spiritual history of man, viz., the frustration or 
abuse of power in a superior intellect originally inclined 
to good. Perhaps there is no problem that more fasci- 
nates the attention of a man of some earnestness at that 
period of his life, when his eye first disengages itself from 
the external phenomena around him, and his curiosity 
leads him to examine the cause and account for the effect; 
— when, to cite reverently the words of the wisest, “ He 
applies his heart to know and to search, and to seek out 
wisdom and the reason of things, and to know the wicked- 
ness of folly, even of foolishness and madness.” 

In Eugene Aram, the natural career of genius is ar- 
rested by a single crime ; in Godolphin, a mind of inferior 
order, but more fanciful coloring, is wasted away by the 
indulgence of those morbid sentiments which are the 
nourishment of egotism, and the gradual influence of the 
frivolities which make the business of the idle. Here, 
the Demon tempts or destroys the hermit in his solitary 
cell. There, he glides amid the pomps and vanities of the 


PREFACE. 


IX 


world, and whispers away the soul in the voice of his soft 
familiars, Indolence and Pleasure. 

Of all my numerous novels, Pelham and Godolphin are 
the only ones which take their absolute groundwork in 
what is called “The Fashionable World.” I have sought 
in each to make the general composition in some harmony 
with the principal figure in the foreground. Pelham is 
represented as almost wholly unsusceptible to the more 
poetical influences. He has the physical compound, which, 

versatile and joyous, amalgamates easily with the world 

he views life with the lenient philosophy that Horace com- 
mends in Aristippus; he laughs at the follies he shares; 
and is ever ready to turn into uses ultimately (if indi- 
rectly) serious, the frivolities that only serve to sharpen 
his wit, and. augment that peculiar expression which we 
term “knowledge of the world.” In a word, dispel all 
his fopperies, real or assumed, he is still the active man of 
crowds and cities, determined to succeed, and gifted with 
the ordinary qualities of success. Godolphin, on the con- 
trary, is the man of poetical temperament, out of his place 
alike among the trifling idlers and the bustling actors of 
the world — wanting the stimulus of necessity — or the 
higher motive which springs from benevolence, to give 
energy to his powers or definite purpose to his fluctuating 
desires ; not strong enough to break the bonds that con- 
fine his genius — not supple enough to accommodate its 
movements to their purpose. He is the moral antipodes 
to Pelham. In evading the struggles of the world, he 
grows indifferent to its duties — he strives with no obstacles 


z 


PREFACE. 


— be can triumph in no career. Represented as possess* 
ing mental qualities of a higher and a richer nature than 
those to which Pelham can pretend, he is also represented 
as very inferior to him in constitution of cnaracter, and he 
is certainly a more ordinary type of the intellectual trifler. 

The characters grouped around Godolphin are those 
with which such a man usually associates his life. They 
are designed to have a certain grace — a certain harmony 
with one form or the other of his twofold temperament : — 
v,iz., either its conventic.no elegance of taste, or its consti- 
tutional poetry of idea. J3ut all alike are brought under 
varying operations of similar influences; or whether in 
Saville, Constance, Fanny, or Lucilla — the picture pre- 
sented is still the picture of gifts misapplied — of life mis- 
understood. The Preacher who exclaimed, “Vanity of 
vanities ! all is vanity,” perhaps solved his own mournful 
saying, when he added elsewhere, “This only have I found, 
that God made men upright — but they have sought out 
many inventions.” 

This work was first published anonymously, and for that 
reason perhaps it has been slow in attaining to its rightful 
station among its brethren— whose parentage at first was 
openly acknowledged. If compared with Pelham, it might 
lose, at the first glance, but would perhaps gain on any 
attentive reperusal. 

For although it must follow from the inherent difference 
in the design of the two works thus referred to, that in 
Godolphin there can be little of the satire or vivacity which 
have given popularity to its predecessor, yet, on the other 


PREFACE. 


xi 

hand, in Uodolphin there ought to be a more faithful illus- 
tration of the even polish that belongs to luxurious life, 

of the satiety that pleasure inflicts upon such of its vota- 
ries as are worthy of a higher service. The subject selected 
cannot admit the same facility for observation of things 
that lie on the surface — but it may well lend itself to subtler 
investigation of character — allow more attempt at pathos, 
and more appeal to reflection. 

Regarded as a story, the defects of Godolphin most ap- 
parent to myself are in the manner in which Lucilla is 
reintroduced in the later chapters, and in the final catas- 
trophe of the hero. There is an exaggerated romance in 
the one, and the admission of accident as a crowning 
agency in the other, which my maturer judgment would 
certainly condemn, and which at all events appear to me 
out of keeping with the natural events, and the more 
patient investigation of moral causes and their conse- 
quences, from which the previous interest of the tale is 
sought to be attained. On the other hand, if I may pre- 
sume to conjecture the most probable claim to favor which 
the work, regarded as a whole, may possess — it may pos- 
sibly be found in a tolerably accurate description of certain 
phases of modern civilization, and in the suggestion of 
some truths that may be worth considering in our exam- 
ination of social influences or individual conduct. 






CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

The death-bed of John Vernon— His dying words— Descrip, 
tion of his daughter, the heroine— The oath.... 

CHAPTER II. 

Remark on the tenure of life-The coffins of great men seldom 
neglected— Constance takes refuge with Lady Erpingham 

The heroine’s accomplishments and character The 

manoeuvring temperament 

CHAPTER III. 

The hero introduced to our reader’s notice— Dialogue between 
himself and his father— Percy Godolphin’s character as a 
boy — The catastrophe of his school life 

CHAPTER IV. 

Percy’s first adventure as a free agent 

CHAPTER V. 

The mummers— Godolphin in love— The effect of Fanny Mil- 
linger’s acting upon him— The two offers— Godolphin 
quits the players 


CHAPTER VI. 

Percy Godolphin the guest of Saville— He enters tho Life- 
Guards, and becomes the fashion 

CHAPTER VII 

Saville excused for having human affections— Godolphin sees 
one whom he never sees again— The new actress 
2 


*ASB 

21 

28 

33 

38 

41 

47 

51 


( xiii ) 


XI7 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

PAG 9 

Godolphin’s passion for the stage — The difference it engendered 
in his habits of life 55 

CHAPTER IX. 

The legacy — A new deformity in Saville — The nature of worldly 

liaisons — Godolphin leaves England 68 

CHAPTER X. 

The education of Constance’s mind 33 

CHAPTER XI. 

Conversation between Lady Erpingham and Constance — Fur 

ther particulars of Godolphin’s family, etc 66 

CHAPTER XII. 

Description of Godolphin’s house — The first interview — Its 

effect on Constance 70 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A ball announced — Godolphin’s visit to Wendover Castle — His 

manners and conversation 78 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Conversation between Godolphin and Constance — The country 
life and the town life 81 

CHAPTER XV. 

The feelings of Constance and Godolphin toward each other 

The distinction in their characters — Remarks on the 
effects produced by the world upon Godolphin — The ride 
—Rural descriptions— Omens— The first indistinct con- 
fession g£ 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Godolphin’s return home— His soliloquy— Lord Erpingham’s 
arrival at Wendover Castle— The earl described— His ac- 
count of Godolphin’s life at Rome 93 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


CHAPTER XVII, 

Constance at her toilet— Her feelings— Her character of beauty 
described-The ball-The Duchess of Winstoun and her 
daughter— An induction from the nature of female rival- 
ries Jealousy in a lover — Impertinence retorted — Listen- 
ers never hear good of themselves — Remarks on the 

amusements of a public assembly — The supper The 

falseness of seeming gay ety — Various reflections, new 
and true — What passes between Godolphin and Gon- 

8tance * 100 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The interview— The crisis of a life 123 

CHAPTER XIX. 

A rake and exquisite of the best (worst) school— A conversa- 
tion on a thousand matters— The declension of the mi pro- 
fusus into the alieni appetens 2g 2 

CHAPTER XX. 

Fanny Millinger once more— Love — Woman— Books— A hun- 
dred topics touched on the surface— Godolphin’s state of 
mind more minutely examined— The dinner at Saville’s... 146 

CHAPTER XXI. 

An event of great importance to the principal actors in this 
history — Godolphin a second time leaves England 156 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The bride alone — A dialogue political and matrimonial Con- 

stance’s genius for diplomacy— The character of her as- 
semblies — Her conquest over Lady Delville 160 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

An insight into the real grand monde ; — being a search behind 
the rose-colored curtains 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The married state of Constance. 


XVI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

PA0I 

The pleasure of retaliating humiliation — Constance’s defense 
of fashion — Remarks on fashion — Godolphin’s whereabout 
— Fanny Millinger’s character of herself — Want of courage 
in moralists 1 176 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

The visionary and his daughter — An Englishman, such as 

foreigners imagine the English 180 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

A conversation little appertaining to the nineteenth century — 

Researches into human fate — The prediction 190 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The youth of Lucilla Volktman — A mysterious conversation — 


The return of one unlooked for 203 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

The effect of years and experience — The Italian character 215 

CHAPTER XXX. 


Magnetism — Sympathy — The return of elements to elements... 218 
CHAPTER XXXI. 

A Scene — Lucilla’s strange conduct — Godolphin passes through 

a severe ordeal — Egeria’s Grotto, and what there happens.. 224 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

The weakness of all virtue springing only from the feelings.... 241 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Return to Lady Erpingham — Lady Erpingham falls ill — Lord 
Erpingham resolves to go abroad — Plutarch upon musical 
instruments — Party at Erpingham House — Saville on 
society and the taste for the little — David Mandeville — 

W )men, their influence and education — The necessity of 
an object — Religion 251 


CONTENTS. 


xvii 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


Ambition vindicated— The home of Godolphin and Lucilla— 
Lucilla’s mind-The effect of happy love on female talent 
—The eve of farewell— Lucilla alone-Test of a woman’s 
affection 


PAGH 


262 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

Godolphin at Rome— The cure for a morbid idealism— His em- 
barrassment in regard to Lucilla— The rencounter with an 
old friend — The Colosseum — A surprise 277 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Dialogue between Godolphin and Saville— Certain events ex- 
plained— Saville’s apology for a bad heart— Godolphin’s 
confused sentiments for Lady Erpingham 28G 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

An evening with Constance 292 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Constance’s undiminished love for Godolphin— Her remorse 
and her hope— The Capitol— The different thoughts of Go- 
dolphin and Constance at the view— The tender expres- 
sions of Constance 295 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Lucilla’s letter — The effect it produces on Godolphin 301 

CHAPTER XL. 

Tivoli — The Siren’s Cave — The confession 308 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Lucilla— The solitude— The spell— The dream and the resolve.. 313 
CHAPTER XLII. 

Joy and despair 32^ 

2 * * 


xviii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER XLIII 

PAOH 

Love strong as death, and not less bitter 328 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Godolphin . 332 

CHAPTER XLV. 

The declaration — The approaching nuptials — Is the idealist 

contented? 335 

CHAPTER XLYI. 

The bridals — The accident — The first lawful possession of 
love 339 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

Nows of Lucilla 343 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

In which two persons, permanently united, discover that no 

tie can produce union of minds 345 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

The return to London — The eternal nature of disappointment 

— Fanny Millinger — Her house and supper 350 

CHAPTER L. 

Godolphin’s soliloquy — He becomes a man of pleasure and a 
patron of the arts — A new character shadowed forth; for 
as we advance, whether in life or its representation, char- 
acters are more faint and dimly drawn than in the earlier 
part of our career 357 

CHAPTER LI. 

Godolphin’s course of life — Influence of opinion and of ridi- 
cule on the minds of privileged orders — Lady Erpingham’s 
friendship with George IV. — His manner of living 362 

CHAPTER LII. 

Radclyffe and Godolphin converse — The varieties of ambition.. 366 


CONTENTS. 


xlx 


CHAPTER LIII. 

Fanny behind the scenes — Reminiscences of youth — The uni- 
versality of trick— The supper at Fanny Millinger’s — 

Talk on a thousand matters, equally light and true — 
Fanny’s song ggg 

CHAPTER LIV. 

Tie career of Constance— Real state of her feelings toward 
Godolphin — Rapid succession of political events — Can- 
ning’s administration — Catholic Question — Lord Grey’s 
speech — Canning’s death 373 

CHAPTER LV. 

The death of George IV. — The political situation of parties, 

and of Lady Erpingham 334 


CHAPTER LVI. 


The roue has become a valetudinarian— News — A fortune- 


teller 

CHAPTER LVII. 

Superstition — Its wonderful effects 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

The empire of time and of love— The proud Constance 
weak and humble — An ordeal 


grown 


387 

392 


394 


CHAPTER LIX. 

fjonstance makes a discovery that touches and enlightens her 
as to Godolphin’s nature— An event, although in private 
life, not without its interest 


CHAPTER LX. 

The Reform Bill — A very short chapter 

CHAPTER LXI. 

The soliloquy of the soothsayer— An episodical mystery, intro- 
duced as a type of the many things in life that are never 
accounted for— Gratuitous deviations from our common 
career 


XX CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER LXII. 

In which the common life glides into the strange — Equally 
true, but the truth not equally acknowledged 

CHAPTER LXIII. 

A meeting between Constance and the prophetess 

CHAPTER LXIV. 

Lucilla’s flight — The perplexity of Lady Erpingham — A change 
comes over Godolphin s mind — His conversation with Rad- 
clyffe — General election — Godolphin becomes a senator... 

CHAPTER LXV. 

New views of a privileged order — The death-bed of Augustus 
Saville 


CHAPTER LXYI. 

The journey and the surprise — A walk in the summer night — 
The stars, and the association that memory makes with 
nature 


CHAPTER LXVII. 

The full renewal of love — Happiness produces fear, “and in 
to-day already walks to-morrow” 

CHAPTER LXVIII. 

The last conversation between Godolphin and Constance— His 
thoughts and solitary walk amid the scenes of his youth 
— The letter — The departure 


PA«1 

414 

417 

429 

441 

447 

454 

455 


CHAPTER THE LAST. 

A dread meeting — The storm — The catastrophe 


466 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER I. 

WE DEATH-BED OF JOHN VERNON — HIS DYING WORDS — DESCRIP" 
TION OF HIS DAUGHTER, THE HEROINE — THE OATH. 

“Is the night calm, Constance?” 

“Beautiful ! the moon is up.” 

“Open the shutters wider, — there. It is a beautiful 

night. How beautiful I Come hither, my child.” 

The rich moonlight that now shone through the win- 
dows streamed on little that it could invest with poetical 
attraction. The room was small, though not squalid in 
its character and appliances The bed-curtains, of a dull 
chintz, were drawn back, and showed the form of a man, 
past middle age, propped by pillows, and bearing on his 
countenance the marks of approaching death. But what 
a countenance it still was 1 The broad, pale, lofty brow ; 
the fine, straight, Grecian nose ; the short, curved lip; the 
full, dimpled chin ; the stamp of genius in every line and 
lineament; — these still defied disease, or rather borrowed 
from its very ghastliness a more impressive majesty. Be- 
side the bed was a table spread with books of a motley 
character. Here an abstruse system of Calculations on 

( 21 ) 


22 


GODOLPHIN. 


Finance ; there a volume of wild Bacchanalian Songs ; 
here the lofty aspirations of Plato’s “Phsedon;” and there 
the last speech of some County Paris on a Malt Tax : old 
newspapers and dusty pamphlets completed the intellectual 
litter; and above them rose, mournfully enough, the tall, 
spectral form of a half- emptied phial, and a chamber can- 
dlestick, crested by its extinguisher 

A light step approached the bedside, and opposite the 
dying man now stood a girl who might have seen her 
thirteenth year. But her features — of an exceeding, and 
what may be termed a regal beauty — were as fully de- 
veloped as those of one who had told twice her years ; 
and not a trace of the bloom or the softness of girlhood 
could be marked on her countenance. Her complexion 
was pale as the whitest marble, but clear and lustrous ; 
and her raven hair, parted over her brow in a fashion then 
uncommon, increased the statue-like and classic effect of 
her noble features. The expression of her countenance 
seemed cold, sedate, and somewhat stern ; but it might, in 
some measure, have belied her heart; for, when turned to 
the moonlight, you might see that her eyes were filled with 
tears, though she did not weep ; and you might tell by the 
quivering of her lip, that a little hesitation in replying to 
any remark from the sufferer arose from her difficulty in 
commanding her emotions. 

“ Constance,” said the invalid, after a pause, in which 
he seemed to have been gazing with a quiet heart on the 
soft skies, that, blue and eloquent with stars, he beheld 
through the unclosed windows Constance, the hour is' 


godolphin. 


23 


coming ; I feel it by signs which I cannot mistake. I 
shall die this night” 

“ 0h , God !— my father !— my dear, dear father !” broke 
from Constance’s lips; “do not speak thus— do not— I 
will go to Doctor ” 

“ No, child, no ; I loathe— I detest the thought of help ! 
They denied it me while it was yet time. They left me to 
starve, or to rot in jail, or to hang myself! They left me 
like a dog, and like a dog I will die ! I would not have 
one iota taken from the justice— the deadly and dooming 
weight of my dying curse.” Here violent spasms broke 
on the speech of the sufferer ; and when, by medicine and 
his daughter’s attentions, he had recovered, he said, in a 
lower and calmer key:— “Is all quiet below, Constance? 
Are all in bed ? The landlady— the servants— our fellow- 
lodgers ?” 

“All, my father.” 

Ay, then I shall die happy. Thank Heaven you are 
my only nurse^and attendant. I remember the day when 
I was ill after one of their rude debauches. Ill !_■«, sick 
headache — a fit of the spleen — a spoiled lapdog’s ill- 
ness ! Well: they wanted me that night to support one 
of their paltry measures — their parliamentary measures. 
And I had a prince feeling my pulse, and a duke mixing 
my draught, and a dozen earls sending their doctors to me. 

I was of use to them then ! Poor me ! Head me that 
note, Constance — Flamborough’s note. Do you hesitate? 
Read it, I say !” 

Constance trembled and complied. 


24 


GODOLPHIN. 


“My dear Yernon, — I am really au desespoir to hear 
of your melancholy state ; — so sorry I cannot assist you: 
but you know my embarrassed circumstances. By-the-by, 
I saw his Royal Highness yesterday. ‘ Poor Yernon !’ 
said he; ‘ would a hundred pounds do him any good V So 
we don’t forget you, mon cher. Ah 1 how we missed you 
at the Beefsteak ! Never shall we know again so glorious 
a bon vivant. You would laugh to hear L attempt- 

ing to echo your old jokes. But time presses : I must be 
off to the House. You know what a motion it is! Would 
to Heaven you were to bring it on instead of that ass 

T . Adieu ! I wish I could come and see you ; but 

it would break my heart. Can I send you any books from 
Hookham’s ? 

“ Yours ever, Flamborough. ” 

“This is the man whom I made Secretary of State,” 
said Yernon. “ Yery well ! — oh, it’s very well— very well 
indeed ! Let me kiss thee, my girl. Poor Constance ! 
You will have good friends when I am dead ! they will be 
proud enough to be kind to Yernon’s daughter, when 
Death has showm them that Yernon is a loss. You are 

very handsome. Your poor mother’s eyes and hair my 

father’s splendid brow and lip ; and your figure, even now 
so stately ! They will court you : you will have lords and 
great men enough at your feet ; but you will never forget 
this night, nor the agony of your father’s death-bed face, 
and the brand they have burned in his heart. And now, 
Constance, give me the Bible in which you read to me this 
morning: — that will do: — stand away from the light and 
fix your eyes on mine, and listen as if your soul were iu 
your ears. 


GODOLPHIN. 


25 


“When I was a young man, toiling my way to fortune 
through the labors of the bar, — prudent, .cautious, inde- 
fatigable, confident of success, — certain lords, who heard 
I possessed genius, and thought I might become their tool, 
came to me and besought me to enter parliament. I told 
(hem I was poor — was lately married — that my public 
ambition must not be encouraged at the expense of my 
private fortunes. They answered, that they pledged them- 
selves those fortunes should be their care. I yielded ; I 
deserted my profession; I obeyed their wishes; I became 
famous — and a ruined man ! They could not dine without 
me; they could not sup without me; they could not get 
drunk without me; no pleasure was sweet but in my com- 
pany. What mattered it that, while I ministered to their 
amusement, I was necessarily heaping debt upon debt — ac- 
, cumulating miseries for future years — laying up bank- 
ruptcy, and care, and shame, and a broken heart, and an 
early death ? But listen, Constance ! Are you listening ? 
—-attentively ? — Well ! note now, I am a just man. I do 
not blame my noble friends, my gentle patrons, for this. 
No : if I were forgetful of my interests, if I preferred their 
pleasure to my happiness and honor, that was my crime, 
and I deserve the punishment ! But, look you, — Time went 
by, and my constitution was broken ; debts came upon me ; 

I could not pay ; men mistrusted my word ; my name in 
the country fell I With my health, my genius deserted me ; 

I was no longer useful to my party ; I lost my seat in par- 
liament; and when I was on a sick-bed — you remember it, 
Constance — the bailiffs came and tore me away for a pal- 

3 


26 


GODOLPHIN. 


try debt — the value of one of those suppers the Princo 
used to beg me to give him. From that time my familiars 
forsook me ! — not a visit, not a kind act, not a service for 
him whose day of work was over! ‘ Poor Yernon’s char- 
acter was gone ! Shockingly involved — could not perform 
his promises to his creditors — always so extravagant — 
quite unprincipled — must give him up I’ 

“In those sentences lies the secret of their conduct. 
They did not remember that for them, by them, the char- 
acter was gone, the promises broken, the ruin incurred ! 
They thought not how I had served them ; how my best 
years had been devoted to advance them — to ennoble their 
cause in the lying page of History ! All this was not 
thought of: my life was reduced to two epochs — that of 
use to them — that not. During the first, I was honored; 
during the last, I was left to starve — to rot ! Who freed 
me from prison? — who protects me now? One of my 
‘party’ — my ‘noble friends’ — my ‘honorable, right honor- 
able friends ?’ Ho! a tradesman whom I once served in 
my holiday, and who alone, of all the world, forgets me 
not in my penance. You see gratitude, friendship, spring 
up only in middle life ; they grow not in high stations ! 

“And now, come nearer, for my voice falters, and I 
would have these words distinctly heard. Child, girl as 
you are — you I consider pledged to record, to fulfill my 
desire — my curse ! Lay your hand on mine : swear that 
through life to death, — swear ! You speak not ! repeat 
my words after me — Constance obeyed : — “ through life 
to death ; through good, through ill, through weakness, 


GODOLPIIIN. 


27 


through power, you will devote yourself to humble to 
abase that party from whom your father received ingrati- 
tude, mortification, and death 1 Swear that you will not 
marry a poor and powerless man, who cannot minister to 
the ends of that solemn retribution I invoke ! Swear that 
you will seek to marry from among the great ; not through 
love, not through ambition, but through hate, and for re- 
venge I You will seek to rise that you may humble those 
who have betrayed me 1 In the social walks of life you 
will delight to gall their vanities ; in state intrigues, you 
will embrace every measure that can bring them to their 
eternal downfall. For this great end you will pursue all 
means : — What 1 you hesitate ? Repeat, repeat, repeat 1 — 
You will lie, cringe, fawn, and think vice not vice, if it 
bring you one jot nearer to Revenge I With this curse on 
my foes I entwine my blessing, dear, dear Constance, on you, 
— you, who have nursed, watched, all but saved me ! God, 
God bless you, my child 1” And Yernon burst into tears. 

It was two hours after this singular scene, and exactly 
in the third hour of morning, that Yernon woke from 
a short and troubled sleep. The gray dawn (for the 
time was the height of summer) already began to labor 
through the shades and against the stars of night. A raw 
and comfortless chill crept over the earth, and saddened 
the air in the death-chamber. Constance sate by her 
father’s bed, her eyes fixed upon him, and her cheek more 
wan than ever by the pale light of that crude and cheer- 
less dawn. When Yernon woke, his eyes, glazed with 
death, rolled faintly toward her, fixing and dimming in 


23 


GODOLPHIN. 


their sockets as they gazed ; his throat rattled. But for 
one moment his voice found vent ; a ray shot across his 
countenance as he uttered his last words — words that sank 
at once and eternally to the core of his daughter’s heart 
— words that ruled her life, and sealed her destiny : — 
“ Constance, remember — the Oath — Revenge !” 


CHAPTER II. 

REMARK ON THE TENURE OF LIFE THE COFFINS OF GREAT MEN 

SELDOM NEGLECTED CONSTANCE TAKES REFUGE WITH LADY ER- 

PINGHAM THE HEROINE’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CHARACTER 

THE MANOEUVRING TEMPERAMENT. 

What a strange life this is ! what puppets we are 1 
How terrible an enigma is Fate 1 I never set my foot 
without my door, but what the fearful darkness that broods 
over the next moment rushes upon me. How awful an 
event may hang over our hearts ! The sword is always 
above us, seen or invisible. 

And with this life — : this scene of darkness and dread — 
some men would have us so contented as to desire, to ask 
for no other 1 

Constance was now without a near relation in the world. 
But her father predicted rightly : vanity supplied the place 
of affection. Yernon, who for eighteen months preceding 
his death had struggled with the sharpest afflictions of 
want — Yernon, deserted in life by all, was interred with 


GODOLPHIN. 


29 


the insulting ceremonials of pomp and state. Six nobles 
bore his pall : long trains of carriages attended his funeral . 
the journals' were filled with outlines of his biography and 
lamentations at his decease. They buried him in West- 
minster Abbey, and they made subscriptions for a monu- 
ment in the very best sort of marble. Lady Erpingham, a 
distant connection of the deceased, invited Constance to 
live with her ; and Constance of course consented, for she 
had no alternative. 

On the day that she arrived at Lady Erpingham’s house, 
in Hill Street, there were several persons present in the 
drawing-room. 

“I fear, poor girl,” said Lady Erpingham, — for they 
were talking of Constance’s expected arrival, — “I fear 
that she will be quite abashed by seeing so many of us, 
and under such unhappy circumstances.” 

“ How old is she ?” asked a beauty. 

“ About thirteen, I believe.” 

“ Handsome ?” 

“ I have not seen her since she was seven years old. 
She promised then to be very beautiful : but she was a 
remarkably shy, silent child.” 

“Miss Yernon,” said the groom of the chambers, throw- 
ing open the door. 

With the slow step and self-possessed air of woman- 
hood, but with a far haughtier and far colder mien than wo- 
men commonly assume, Constance Yernon walked through 
the long apartment, and greeted her future guardian. 
Though every eye was on her, she did not blush ; though 
3 * 


30 


GODOLPIIIN. 


the Queens of the London World were round her, her 
gait and air were more royal than all. Every one present 
experienced a revulsion of feeling. They were prepared 
for pity ; this was no case in which pity could be given. 
Even the words of protection died on Lady Erpingham’s 
lip, and she it was who felt bashful and disconcerted. 

I intend to pass rapidly over the years that elapsed till 
Constance became a woman. Let us glance at her educa- 
tion. Yernon had not only had her instructed in the 
French and Italian ; but, a deep and impassioned scholar 
himself, he had taught her the elements of the two great 
languages of the ancient world. The treasures of those 
languages she afterward conquered of her own accord. 

Lady Erpingham had one daughter, who married when 
Constance had reached the age of sixteen. The advantages 
Lady Eleanor Erpingham possessed in her masters and 
her governess, Constance shared. Miss Yernon drew 
well, and sang divinely; but she made no very great pro- 
ficiency in the science of music. To say truth, her mind 
was somewhat too stern, and somewhat too intent on other 
subjects, to surrender to that most jealous of accomplish- 
ments the exclusive devotion it requires. 

But of all her attractions, and of all the evidences of her 
cultivated mind, none equaled the extraordinary grace of 
her conversation. Wholly disregarding the conventional 
leading-strings in which the minds of young ladies are ac- 
customed to be held — leading-strings, disguised by the 

name of “ proper diffidence ” and “ becoming modesty,” . 

she never scrupled to share, nay, to lead, discussions even 


GODOLFIIIN. 


31 


of a grave and solid nature. Still less did she scruple to 
adorn the common trifles that make the sum of conversa- 
tion with the fascinations of a wit, which, playful yet deep, 
rivaled even the paternal source from which it was in- 
herited. 

It seems sometimes odd enough to me, that while young 
ladies are so sedulously taught the accomplishments that a 
husband disregards, they are never taught the great\one 
he would prize. They are taught to be exhibitors; he 
wants a companion. He wants neither a singing animal, 
nor a drawing animal, nor a dancing animal ; he wants a 
talking animal. But to talk they are never taught; all 
they know of conversation is slander, and that “comes by 
nature.” 

But Constance did talk beautifully : not like a pedant, 
or a blue, or a Frenchwoman. A child would have been 
as much charmed with her as a scholar ; but both would 
have been charmed. Her father’s eloquence had descended 
to her ; but in him eloquence commanded ; in her it won. 
There was another trait she possessed in common with her 
father: Vernon (as most disappointed men are wont) had 
done the world injustice by his accusations. It was not his 
poverty and his distresses alone which had induced his party 
to look coolly on his declining day. They were not without 
some apparent excuse for desertion — they doubted his sin- 
cerity. It is true that it was without actual cause. Ho 
modern politician had ever been more consistent. He had 
refused bribes, though poor; and place, though ambitious. 
But he was essentially — here is the secret — essentially an 


32 


GODOLPIIIN. 


intriguant. Bred in the old school of policy, he thought 
that manoeuvring was wisdom, and duplicity the art of 
governing. Like Lysander,* he loved plotting, yet ne- 
glected self-interest. There was not a man less open, or 
more honest. This character, so rare in all countries, is 
especially so in England. Your blunt squires, your poli- 
ticians at Bellamy’s, do not comprehend it. They saw in 
Yernon the arts which deceive enemies, and they dreaded 
lest, though his friends, they themselves should be deceived. 
This disposition, so fatal to Yernon, his daughter inherited. 
With a dark, bold, and passionate genius, which in a man 
would have led to the highest enterprises, she linked the 
feminine love of secrecy and scheming. To borrow again 
from Plutarch and Lysander, “When the skin of the lion 
fell short, she was quite of opinion that it should be eked 
out with the fox’s.” 


* Plutarch’s “Life of Lysander. 


<30 DOLPHIN. 


33 


CHAPTER III. 

IHK HERO INTRODUCED TO OUR READER’S NOTICE — DIALOGUE BE- 
TWEEN HIMSELF AND HIS FATHER PERCY GODOLPHIN’s CHAR- 

ACTER AS A BOY — THE CATASTROPHE OF HIS SCHOOL LIFE. 

11 Percy, remember that it is to-morrow you will return 
to school,” said Mr. Godolphin to his only son. 

Percy pouted, and after a momentary silence replied, 
“ No, father, I think I shall go to Mr. Saville’s. He has 
asked me to spend a month with him ; and he says rightly 
that I shall learn more with him than at Dr. Shallowell’s 
where I am already head of the sixth form.” 

“ Mr. Saville is a coxcomb, and you are another !” re 
plied the father, who, dressed in an old flannel dressing 
gown, with a worn velvet cap on his head, and cowering 
gloomily over a wretched fire, seemed no bad personifica- 
tion of that mixture of half hypochondriac, half miser, which 
he was in reality. “ Don’t talk to me of going to town, 
sir, or ” 

“ Father,” interrupted Percy, in a cool and nonchalant 
tone, as he folded his arms and looked straight and 
shrewdly on the paternal face — “father, let us understand 
each other. My schooling, I suppose, is rather an ex- 
pensive affair ?” 

“You may well say that, sir I Expensive ! —it is frightful, 
horrible, ruinous I — Expensive! Tw?»ty pounds a year 


34 


GODOLPHIN. 


board and Latin ; five guineas washing ; five more for 
writing and arithmetic. Sir, if I were not resolved that 
you should not want education, though you may want 

fortune, I should — yes, I should What do you mean, 

gir ? — you are laughing I Is this your respect, your grati- 
tude, to your father ?” 

A slight shade fell over the bright and intelligent counte- 
nance of the boy. 

“Don’t let us talk of gratitude,” said he, sadly ; “Heaven 
knows what either you or I have to be grateful for ! Fortune 
has left to your proud name but these bare walls and a 
handful of barren acres ; to me she gave a father’s affec- 
tion — not such as Nature had made it, but cramped and 
soured by misfortunes.” 

Here Percy paused, and his father seemed also struck 
and affected. “ Let us,” renewed, in a lighter strain, this 
singular boy, who might have passed, by some months, his 
sixteenth year, — “ let us see if we cannot accommodate 
matters to our mutual satisfaction. You can ill afford my 
schooling, and I am resolved that at school I will not stay. 
Saville is a relation of ours ; he has taken a fancy to me ; 
he has even hinted that he may leave me his fortune ; and 
he has promised, at least, to afford me a home and his 
tuition as long as I like. Give me free passport hereafter 
to come and go as I list, and I, in turn, will engage never 
to cost you another shilling. Come, sir, shall it be a 
compact ?” 

“You wound me, Percy,” said the father, with a mournful 
pride in his tone; “ I have not deserved this, at least from 


GODOLPIIIN. 


35 


you. You know not, boy, — you know not all that has 
hardened this heart ; but to you it has not been hard, and 
a taunt from you — yes, that is the serpent’s tooth !” 

Percy in an instant was at his father’s feet ; he seized 
both his hands, and burst into a passionate fit of tears. 
“ Forgive me,” he said, in broken words ; “ I — I meant 
not to taunt you. I am but a giddy boy ! — send me to 
school ! — do with me as you will !” 

“Ay,” said the old man, shaking his head gently, “you 
know not what pain a son’s bitter word can send to a 
parent’s heart. But it is all natural, perfectly natural ! 
You would reproach me with a love of money, it is the sin 
to which youth is the least lenient. But what 1 can I look 
round the world and not see its value, its necessity ? Year 
after year, from my first manhood, I have toiled and toiled 
to preserve from the hammer these last remnants of my 
ancestor’s domains. Year after year, fortune has slipped 
from my grasp; and, after all my efforts, and toward the 
close of a long life, I stand on the very verge of penury. 
But you cannot tell — no man whose heart is not seared 
with many years can tell, or can appreciate, the motives 
that have formed my character. You, however,” — and 
his voice softened as he laid his hand on his son’s head, — 
“you, however, — the gay, the bold, the young, — should not 
have your brow crossed and your eye dimmed by the cares 
that surround me. Go ! I will accompany you to town ; I 
will see Saville myself. If he be one with whom my son 
can, at so tender an age, be safely trusted, you shall pay 
him the visit you wish.” 


36 


GODOLPIIIN. 


Percy would have replied, but his father checked him ; 
and before the end of the evening the father had resolved 
to forget as much as he pleased of the conversation. 

The elder Godolphiu was one of those characters on 
whom it is vain to attempt making a permanent impres- 
sion. The habits of his mind were durably formed : like 
waters, they yielded to any sudden intrusion, but closed 
instantly again. Early in life he had been taught that he 
ought to marry an heiress for the benefit of his estate — his 
ancestral estate ; the restoration of which he had been 
bred to consider the grand object and ambition of life. 
His views had been strangely baffled ; but the more they 
were thwarted the more pertinaciously he clung to them. 
Naturally kind, generous, and social, he had sunk, at length, 
into the anchorite and the miser. All other speculations 
that should retrieve his ancestral honors had failed : but 
there is one speculation that neVer fails — the speculation 
of saving! It was to this that he now indissolubly at- 
tached himself. At moments he was open to all his old 
habits; but such moments were rare and few. A cold, 
hard, frosty penuriousness was his prevalent characteristic. 
He had sent his son, with eighteenpence in his pocket, to 
a school of twenty pounds a year; where, naturally enough, 
he learped nothing but mischief and cricket : yet he con- 
ceived that his son owed him eternal obligations. 

Luckily for Percy, he was an especial favorite with a 
certain not uncelebrated character of the name of Saville ; 
and Saville claimed the privilege of a relation to supply 
him with money and receive him at his home. Wild, pas- 


GODOLPHIN. 


37 


sionate, fond to excess of pleasure, the young Godolphin 
caught eagerly at these occasional visits ; and at each his 
mind, keen and penetrating as it naturally was, took new 
flights and reveled in new views. He was already the 
leader of his school, the torment of the master, and the 
lover of the master’s daughter. He was sixteen years old, 
but a character. A secret pride, a secret bitterness, and 
an open wit and recklessness of bearing, rendered him to 
all seeming a boy more endowed with energies than affec- 
tions. Yet a kind word from a friend’s lips was never 
without its effect on him, and he might have been led by 
the silk while he would have snapped the chain. But 
these were his boyish traits of mind : the world soon 
altered them. 

The subject of the visit to Saville was not again touched 
upon. A little reflection showed Mr. Godolphin how nu- 
gatory were the promises of a schoolboy that he should 
not cost his father another shilling ; and he knew that 
Saville’s house was not exactly the spot in which economy 
was best learned. He thought it, therefore, more prudent 
that his son should return to school. 

To. school went Percy Godolphin; and about three 
weeks afterward, Percy Godolphin was condemned to ex- 
pulsion for returning, with considerable unction, a slap in 
the face that he had received from Dr. Shallowell. In- 
stead of waiting for his father’s arrival, Percy made up a 
small bundle of clothes, let himself drop, by the help of 
the bed-curtains, from the window of the room in which 
he was confined, and toward the close of a fine summer’s 

4 


38 


GODOLPHIN. 


evening found himself on the high-road between * * * * 
and London, with independence at his heart and (Saville’s 
last gift) ten guineas in his pocket. 


CHAPTER IY. 

Percy’s first adventure as a free agent. 

It was a fine, picturesque outline of road on which the 
young outcast found himself journeying, whither he neither 
knew nor cared. His heart was full of enterprise and the 
unfleshed valor of inexperience. He had proceeded several 
miles, and the dusk of the evening was setting in, when he 
observed a stage coach crawling heavily up a hill a little 
a head of him, and a tall, well-shaped man, walking along- 
side of it and gesticulating somewhat violently. Godol- 
phin remarked him with some curiosity ; and the man, 
turning abruptly round, perceived, and in his turn noticed 
very inquisitively, the person and aspect of the young 
traveler. 

“And how now ?” said he, presently, and in an agree- 
able though familiar and unceremonious tone of voice ; 
“ whither are you bound this time of day ?” 

“ It is no business of yours, friend,” said the boy, with 
the proud petulance of his age ; “ mind what belongs to 
yourself.” 

“You are sharp on me, young sir,” returned the other: 


UOtfUliPIIlN. 


39 


“but it is our business to be loquacious. Know, sir,” 

and the stranger frowned—' “ that we have ordered many a 
taller fellow than yourself to execution, for a much smaller 
insolence than you seem capable of.” 

A laugh from the coach caused Godolphin to lift up his 
eyes, and he saw the door of the vehicle half open, as if 
for coolness, and an arch female face looking down on him. 

“You are merry on me, I see,” said Percy j “come out, 
and I’ll be even with you, pretty one.” 

The lady laughed yet more loudly at the premature gal- 
lantry of the traveler, but the man, without heeding her, 
and laying his hand on Percy’s shoulder, said : 

“Pray, sir, do you live at B * * * * ?” naming the town 
they were now approaching. 

“ Not I,” said Godolphin, freeing himself from the in- 
trusion. 

“You will, perhaps, sleep there?” 

“Perhaps I shall.” 

“You are too young to travel alone.” 

“And you are too old to make such impertinent re- 
marks,” retorted Godolphin, reddening with anger. 

“ Faith, I like this spirit, my Hotspur,” said the stranger, 
coolly. “ If you are really going to put up for the night 
at B * * * *, suppose we sup together ?” 

“And who and what are you ?” asked Percy, bluntly. 

“Anything and everything ! in other words, an actor J” 

“And the young lady ?” 

“Is our prima donna. In fact, except our driver, the 
coach holds none but the ladies and gentlemen of our com- 


40 


GODOLPHIN. 


pany. We have made an excellent harvest at A * * * *, 
and we are now on our way to the theater at B * * * * ; 
pretty theater it is, too, and has been known to hold 
seventy-one pounds eight shillings.” Here the actor fell 
into a reverie ; and Percy, moving nearer to the coach 
door, glanced at the damsel, who returned the look with a 
laugh which, though coquettish, was too low and musical 
to be called bold. 

“ So that gentleman, so free and easy in his manners, is 
not your husband ?” 

u Heaven forbid I Do you think I should be so gay if 
he were ? But, pooh I what can you know of married life ? 
No !” she continued, with a pretty air of mock dignity; 
“ I am the Belvidera, the Galista of the company ; — 
above all control, all husbanding, and reaping thirty-three 
shillings a week.” 

“ But are you above lovers as well as husbands ?” asked 
Percy, with a rakish air, borrowed from Saville. 

“ Bless the boy 1 No : but then my lovers must be at 
least as tall, and at least as rich, and, I am afraid, at least 
as old as myself.” 

“ Don’t frighten yourself, my dear,” returned Percy ; 
“1 was not about to make love to you.” 

11 Were you not ? Yes you were, and you know it. But 
why will not you sup with us ?” 

“ Why not, indeed ?” thought Percy, as the idea, thus 
more enticingly put than it was at first, pressed upon him. 
“ If you ask me,” said he, “I will.” 

“I do ask you, then,” said the actress: and here the 


GODOLPHIN. 


4 ] 


hero of the company turned abruptly round with a theatri- 
cal start, and exclaimed : “ To sup or not to sup ? that is 
the question.” 

“ To sup, sir,” said Godolphin. 

“Very well I I am glad to hear it. Had you not better 
mount, and rest yourself in the coach ? You can take my 
place — I am studying a new part. We have two miles 
farther to B * * * * yet.” 

Percy accepted the invitation, and was soon by the side 
of the pretty actress. The horses broke into a slow trot, 
and thus, delighted with his adventure, the son of the 
ascetic Godolphin, the pupil of the courtly Saville, entered 
the town of B * * * * and commenced his first independ- 
ent campaign in the great world. 


CHAPTER Y 

THE MUMMERS — GODOLPHIN IN LOVE — THE EFFECT OF FANNY MIL- 
LINGER’S ACTING UPON HIM — THE TWO OFFERS — GODOLPHIN 
QUITS THE PLAYERS. 

Our travelers stopped at the first inn in the outskirts of 
the town. Here they were shown into a large room on 
the ground floor, sanded, with a long table in the center; 
and before the supper was served Percy had leisure to 
examine all the companions with whom he had associated 
himself. 


4 * 


42 


G0D0LPH1N. 


In the first place, there was an old gentleman, of the 
age of sixty-three, in a bob- wig, and inclined to be stout, 
who always played the lover. He was equally excellent 
in the pensive Romeo and the bustling Rapid. He had 
an ill way of talking off the stage, partly because he had 
lost all his front teeth : a circumstance which made him 
avoid, in general, those parts in which he had to force a 
great deal of laughter. Next, there was a little girl, of 
about fourteen, who played angels, fairies, and, at a pinch, 
was very effective as an old woman. Thirdly, there was 
our free-and-easy cavalier, who, having a loud voice and a 
manly presence, usually performed the tyrant. He was 
great in “Macbeth,” greater in “Bombastes Furioso.” 
Fourthly, came this gentleman’s wife, a pretty, slatternish 
woman, much painted. She usually performed the second 
female — the confidant, the chambermaid — the Emilia to 
the Desdemona. And fifthly, was Percy’s new inamorata, 
— a girl of about one and twenty, fair, with a nez re - 
troussZ: beautiful auburn hair, that was always a little 
disheveled ; the prettiest mouth, teeth, and dimple imag- 
inable ; a natural color ; and a person that promised to 
incline hereafter toward that roundness of proportion 
which is more dear to the sensual than the romantic. This 
girl, whose name was Fanny Millinger, was of so frank, 
good-humored, and lively a turn, that she was the idol of 
the whole company, and her superiority in acting was 
never made a matter of jealousy. Actors may believe 
this or not, as they please. 

“But is this all your company?” said Percy. 


GODOLPHIN. 


43 


“All ? no !” replied Fanny, taking off her bonnet, and 
curling up her tresses by the help of a dim glass. “The 
rest are provided at the theater along with the candle- 
snuffer and scene-shifters; — part of the fixed property. 
Why won’t you take to the stage ? I wish you would I 
you would make a very respectable — page.” 

“Upon my word 1” said Percy, exceedingly offended. 

“ Come, come !” cried the actress, clapping her hands, 
and perfectly unheeding his displeasure — “ Why don’t you 
help me off with my cloak ? — why don’t you set me a chair ? 
— why don’t you take this great box out of my way ? — why 
don’t you Heaven help me 1” and she stamped her lit- 

tle foot quite seriously on the floofc “A pretty person for 
a lover you are 1” 

“ Oho ! then I am a lover, you acknowledge ?” 

“ Nonsense — get a chair next me at supper.” 

The young Godolphin was perfectly fascinated by the 
lively actress ; and it was with no small interest that he 
stationed himself the following night in the stage-box of 
the little theater at * * *, to see how his Fanny acted. 
The house was tolerably well filled, and the play was “She 
Stoops to Conquer.” The male parts were, on the whole, 
respectably managed ; though Percy was somewhat sur- 
prised to observe that a man, who had joined the corps 
that morning, blessed with the most solemn countenance 
in the world — a fine Homan nose, and a forehead like a 
sage’s — was now dressed in nankeen tights, and a coat 
without skirts, splitting the sides of the gallery in the part 
rf Tony Lumpkin. But into the heroine, Fanny Millin- 


44 


GODOLPHIN. 


ger threw a grace, a sweetness, a simple yet dignified 
spirit of true love, that at once charmed and astonished 
all present. The applause was unbounded ; and Percy 
Godolphin felt proud of himself for having admired one 
whom every one else seemed also resolved upon admiring. 

When the comedy was finished, he went behind the 
scenes, and for the first time felt the rank which intellect 
bestows. This idle girl, with whom he had before been 
so familiar ; who had seemed to him, boy as he was, only 
made for jesting, and coquetry, and trifling, he now felt to 
be raised to a sudden eminence that startled and abashed 
him. He became shy and awkward, and stood at a dis- 
tance, stealing a glance toward her, but without the courage 
to approach and compliment her. 

The quick eye of the actress detected the effect she had 
produced. She was naturally pleased at it, and coming 
up to Godolphin, she touched his shoulder, and with a 
smile rendered still more brilliant by the rouge yet un- 
washed from the dimpled cheeks, said — “Well, most awk- 
ward swain ? no flattery ready for me ? Go to 1 you won’t 
suit me : get yourself another empress !” 

“You have pleased me into respecting you,” said Go 
dolphin. 

There was a delicacy in the expression that was very 
characteristic of the real mind of the speaker, though that 
mind was not yet developed ; and the pretty actress was 
touched by it at the moment, though, despite the grace of 
her acting, she was by nature far too volatile to think it at 
all advantageous to be respected on the long run. She 


GODOLPHIN. 


45 


did not act in the after-piece, and Godolphin escorted her 
home to the inn. 

So long as his ten guineas lasted — which the reader will 
conceive was not very long — Godolphin stayed with the 
gay troop, as the welcome lover of its chief ornament. To 
her he confided his name and history : she laughed heartily 
at the latter — for she was one of Venus’s true children, 
fond of striking mirth out of all subjects. “But what,” 
said she, patting his cheek affectionately, “what should 
hinder you from joining us for a little while? I could 
teach you to be an actor in three lessons. Come now, 
attend 1 It is but a mere series of tricks, this art that 
seems to you so admirable.” 

Godolphin grew embarrassed. There was in him a sort 
of hidden pride that could never endure to subject itself to 
the censure of others. He had no propensity to imita- 
tion, and he had a strong susceptibility to the ridiculous. 
These traits of mind thus early developed — which in later 
life prevented his ever finding fit scope for his natural 
powers, which made him too proud to bustle and too phi- 
losophical to shine — were of service to him on this occa- 
sion, and preserved him from the danger into which he 
might otherwise have fallen. He could not be persuaded to 
act : the fair Fanny gave up the attempt in despair. “Yet 
stay with us,” said she, tenderly, “and share my poor 
earnings.” 

Godolphin started ; and in the wonderful contradictions 
of the proud human heart, this generous offer from the 
poor actress gave him a distaste, a displeasure, that almost 


46 


aODOLPHIN. 


reconciled him to parting from her. It seemed to open 
to him at once the equivocal mode of life he had entered 
upon. “No, Fanny,” said he, after a pause, “I am here 
because I resolved to be independent : I cannot, therefore, 
choose dependence.” 

“ Miss Millinger is wanted instantly for rehearsal,” said 
the little girl who acted fairies and old women, putting her 
head suddenly into the room. 

“Bless me I” cried Fanny, starting up; “is it so late? 
Well, I must go now. Good-by! look in upon us — do 1” 

But Godolphin, moody and thoughtful, walked into the 
street ; and lo ! the first thing that greeted his eyes was a 
handbill on the wall, describing his own person, and offer- 
ing twenty guineas reward for his detection. “ Let him 
return to his afflicted parent,” was the conclusion of the 
bill, “and all shall be forgiven.” 

Godolphin crept back to his apartment; wrote a long, 
affectionate letter to Fanny; inclosed her his watch, as 
the only keepsake in his power; gave her his address at 
Saville’s ; and then, toward dusk, once more sallied forth, 
and took a place in the mail for London. He had no 
money for his passage, but his appearance was such that 
the coachman readily trusted him ; and the next morning 
at daybreak he was under Saville’s roof. 


GODOLPHIN. 


4 ? 


CHAPTER VI. 

?ERCY GODOLPHIN THE GUEST OF SAVILLE HE ENTERS THE LIFE 

GUARDS AND BECOMES THE FASHION. 

“And so,” said Saville, laughing, “you really gave them 
the slip : excellent 1 But I envy you your adventures with 
the player folk. Gad I if I were some years younger, I 
would join them myself ; I should act Sir Pertinax Mac- 
sycophant famously ; I have a touch of the mime in me. 
Well ! but what do you propose to do ! — live with me ? — 
eh 1” 

“ Why, I think that might be the best, and certainly it 
would be the pleasantest mode of passing my life. But ” 

“But what?” 

“ Why, I can scarcely quarter myself on your courtesy ; 
I should soon grow discontented. So I shall write to my 
father, whom I, kindly and considerately, by-the-way, in- 
formed of my safety the very first day of my arrival at 
B * * * *. I told him to direct his letters to your house ; 
but I regret to find that the handbill which so frightened 
me from my propriety is the only notice he has deigned to 
take of my whereabout. I shall write to him therefore 
again, begging him to let me enter the army. It is not a 
profession I much fancy ; but what then ? I shall be my 
own master.” 

“Very well said!” answered Saville; “and here I hope 


4 ? 


GODOLPIIIN. 


I can serve you. If your father will pay the lawful sum 
for a commission in the Guards, why, I think I have in- 
terest to get you in for that sum alone — no trifling favor.” 

Godolphin was enchanted at this proposal, and instantly 
wrote to his father, urging it strongly upon him ; Saville, * 
in a separate epistle, seconded the motion. “You see,” 
wrote the latter, — “you see, my dear sir, that your son is 
a wild, resolute scapegrace. You can do nothing with him 
by schools and coercion : put him to discipline in the king’s 
service, and condemn him to live on his pay. It is a cheap 
mode, after all, of providing for a reprobate; and as he 
will have the good fortune to enter the army at so early an 
age, by the time he is thirty he may be a colonel on full 
pay. Seriously, this is the best thing you can do with 
him, — unless you have a living in your family.” 

The old gentleman was much discomposed by these let- 
ters, and by his son’s previous elopement. He could not, 
however, but foresee that, if he resisted the boy’s wishes, 
he was likely to have a troublesome time of it. Scrape 
after scrape, difficulty following difficulty, might ensue, all 
costing both anxiety and money. The present offer fur- 
nished him with a fair excuse for ridding himself, for a long 
time to come, of further provision for his offspring; and 
now growing daily more and more attached to the indolent 
routine of solitary economies in which he moved, he was 
glad of an opportunity tp deliver himself from future in • 
terruption, and surrender his whole soul to his favorite 
occupation. 

At length, after a fortnight’s delay and meditation, he 


GODOLPHIN. 


49 


wrote shortly to Saville and his son ; saying, after much 
reproach to the latter, that if the commission could really 
be purchased at the sum specified, he was willing to make 
a sacrifice, for which he must pinch himself, and conclude 
the business. This touched the son, but Saville laughed 
him out of the twinge of good feeling; and very shortly 
afterward, Percy Godolphin was gazetted as a cornet in 
the Life Guards. 

The life of a soldier, in peace, is indolent enough, Heaven 
knows ! Percy liked the new uniforms and the new horses 

all of which were bought on credit. He liked his new 

companions; he liked balls; he liked flirting; he did not 
dislike Hyde Park from four o’clock till six; and he was 
not very much bored by drills and parade. It was much 
to his credit in the world that he was the protege of a man 
who had so great a character for profligacy and gambling 
as Augustus Saville ; and under such auspices he found 
himself launched at once into the full tide of “good 
society. ” 

Young, romantic, high spirited — with the classic features 
of an AntinouR, and a very pretty knack of complimenting 
and writing verses — Percy Godolphin soon became, wfliile 
yet more fit in years for the nursery than the world, “ the 
curled darling” of that wide class of high-born women who 
have nothing to do but to hear love made to them, and 
who, all artifice themselves, think the love sweetest which 
springs from the most natural source. They like boyhood 
when it is not bashful; and from sixteen to twenty, a Juan 
need scarcely go to Seville to find a Julia. 

5 D 


50 


GODOLPHIN. 


But love was not the worst danger that menaced the in- 
toxicated boy. Saville, the most seductive of tutors,— 
Saville, who, in his wit, his bon ton , his control over the 
great world, seemed as a god to all less elevated and less 
aspiring, — Saville was Godolphin’s constant companion ; 
and Saville was worse than a profligate — he was a gambler ! 
One would think that gaming was the last vice that could 
fascinate the young : its avarice, its grasping, its hideous 
selfishness, its cold, calculating meanness, would, one might 
imagine, scare away all who have yet other and softer 
deities to worship. But, in fact, the fault of youth is, that 
it can rarely resist whatever is the Mode. Gaming, in all 
countries, is the vice of an aristocracy. The young find it 
already established in the best circles ; they are enticed by 
the habit of others, and ruined when the habit becomes 
their own. 

“You look feverish, Percy,” said Saville, as he met his 
pupil in the Park. “ I don’t wonder at it : you lost in 
fernally last night.” 

“ More than I can pay,” replied Percy, with a quiver- 
ing lip. 

“ No ! you shall pay it to-morrow, for you shall go 
shares with me to-night. Observe,” continued Saville, 
lowering his voice, “I never lose.” 

“Howl never V' 

“Never, unless by design. I play at no game where 
chance only presides. Whist is my favorite game : it is 
not popular : I am sorry for it. I take up with other 
games, I am forced to do it ; but, even at rouge et noir, 


GODOLPHIN. 


51 


I carry about with me the rules of whist. I calculate — I 
remember. ” 

“But hazard ?” 

“ I never play at that I” said Saville, solemnly. 11 It is 
the devil’s game, it defies skill. Forsake hazard , and let 
me teach you ecarte ; it is coming into fashion.” 

Saville took great pains with Godolphin ; and Godol- 
phin, who was by nature of a contemplative, not hasty 
mood, was no superficial disciple. As his biographer, I 
grieve to confess that he became, though a punctiliously 
honest, a wise and fortunate gamester ; and thus he eked 
out betimes the slender profits of a subaltern’s pay. 

This was the first great deterioration in Percy’s mind — 
a mind which ought to have made him a very different 
being from what he became, but which no vice, no evil 
example, could ever entirely pervert. 


CHAPTER YII. 

SAVILLE EXCUSED FOB HAVING HUMAN AFFECTIONS — GODOLPHIN 
SEES ONE WHOM HE NEVEB SEES AGAIN — THE NEW ACTKESS. 

Saville was deemed the consummate man of the world 
wise and heartless. How came he to take such gratui- 
tous pains with the boy Godolphin? In the first place, 
Saville had no legitimate children ; Godolphin was his re- 
lation : in the second place, it may be observed that hack- 


52 


GODOLPHIN. 


neyed and sated men of the world are fond of the young, 
in whom they recognize something — a better something — - 
belonging to themselves. In Godolphin’s gentleness and 
courage, Saville thought he saw the mirror of his own 
crusted urbanity and scheming perseverance; in Godol- 
phin’s fine imagination and subtle intellect, he beheld his 
own cunning and hypocrisy. The boy’s popularity flat- 
tered him; the boy’s conversation amused. No man is so 
heartless but that he is capable of strong likings, when 
they do not put him much out of his way : it was this sort 
of liking that Saville had for Godolphin. Besides, there 
was yet another reason for attachment, which might at 
first seem too delicate to actuate the refined voluptuary; 
but examined closely, the delicacy vanished. Saville had 
loved, at least had offered his hand to — Godolphin’s mother 
(she was supposed an heiress) 1 He thought he had just 
missed being Godolphin’s father : his vanity made him like 
to show the boy what a much better father he would have 
been than the one that Providence had given him. His 
resentment, too, against the accepted suitor, made him love 
to exercise a little spiteful revenge against Godolphin’s 
father : he was glad to show that the son preferred where 
the mother rejected. All these motives combined made 
Saville take, as it were, to the young Percy ; and being 
rich, and habitually profuse, though prudent, and a shrewd 
speculator withal, the pecuniary part of his kindness cost 
him no pain. But Godolphin, who was not ostentatious, 
did not trust himself largely to the capricious fount of the 
worldling’s generosity. Fortune smiled on her boyish 


GODOLPHIN. 


53 


votary ; and during the short time he was obliged to cul- 
tivate her favors, showered on him at least a sufficiency 
for support, or even for display. 

Crowded with fine people, and blazing with light, were 

the rooms of the Countess of 13 , as, flushed from a 

late dinner at Saville’s, young Godolphin made his ap- 
pearance in the scene. He was not of those numerous 
gentlemen, the stock-flowers of the parterre, who stick 
themselves up against walls in the panoply of neckclothed 
silence. He came not to balls from the vulgar motive of 
being seen there in the most conspicuous situation — a mo- 
tive so apparent among the* stiff exquisites of England. 
He came to amuse himself ; and if he found no one capable 
of amusing him, he saw no necessity in staying. He was 
always seen, therefore, conversing, or dancing, or listening 
to music — or he was not seen at all. 

In exchanging a few words with a Colonel I) , a 

noted roue and gamester, he observed, gazing on him very 
intently— and as Percy thought, very rudely— an old gen- 
tleman in a dress of the last century. Turn where he 
would, Godolphin could not rid himself of the gaze ; so 
at length he met it with a look of equal scrutiny and 
courage. The old gentleman slowly approached. “Percy 
Godolphin, I think ?” said he. 

“ That is my name, sir,” replied Percy. “ Yours ” 

“No matter 1 Yet stay! you shall know it. I am 
Henry Johnstone— old Harry Johnstone. You have heard 
of him ?— your father’s first cousin. Well, I grieve, young 
sir, to find that you associate with that rascal Saville. — 
5* 


54 


GODOLPIIIN. 


Nay, never interrupt me, sir ! — I grieve to find that you, 
thus young, thus unguarded, are left to be ruined in heart 
and corrupted in nature by any one who will take the 
trouble! Yet I like your countenance! — I like your 
countenance ! — it is open, yet thoughtful ; frank, and yet 
it has something of melancholy. You have not Charles’s 
colored hair; but you are much younger — much. I am 
glad I have seen you ; I came here on purpose ; good 
night !” — and without waiting for an answer, the old man 
disappeared. 

Godolphiu, recovering his surprise, recollected that he 
had often heard his father speak of a rich and eccentric 
relation named Johnstone : this singular interview made a 
strong but momentary impression on him. He intended 
to seek out the old man’s residence; but one thing or 
another drove away the fulfillment of the intention, and 
in this world the relations never met again. 

Percy, now musingly gliding through the crowd, sank 
into a seat beside a lady of forty-five, who sometimes 
amused herself in making love to him — because there 
could be no harm in such a mere boy I — and presently 
afterward, a Lord George Somebody, sauntering up, asked 
the lady if he had not seen her at the play on the previous 
night. 

“ Oh, yes 1 we went to see the new actress. How pretty 
she is! — so unaffected too ; — how well she sings !” 

“Pretty well — er!” replied Lord George, passing his 
hand through his hair. Yery nice girl — er ! — good ankles. 
Devilish hot — er, is not it — er — er ? What a bore this is ? 


GODOLPHIN. 


55 


eh! Ah! Godolphin ! don’t forget Wattier’s — erl” and 
his lordship er J d himself off. 

“ What actress is this ?” 

“Oh, a very good one, indeed! — came out in ‘The 
Bella’s Stratagem.’ We are going to see her to-morrow: 
will you dine with us early, and be our cavalier ?” 

“Nothing will please me more! Your ladyship has 
dropped your handkerchief.” 

“ Thank you 1” said the lady, bending till her hair touched 
Godolphin’s cheek, and gently pressing the hand that was 
extended to her. It was a wonder that Godolphin never 
became a coxcomb. 

He dined at Wattier’s the next day according to ap- 
pointment: he went to the play; and at the moment his 
eye 3rst turned to the stage, a universal burst of applause 
indicated the entrance of the new actress — Fanny Millinger! 


CHAPTER Till. 

UODOLPHIN’s PASSION FOR THE STAGE — THE DIFFERENCE IT 
ENGENDERED IN HIS HABITS OF LIFE. 

Now this event produced a great influence over Godol- 
phin’s habits — and I suppose, therefore, I may add, over 
his character. He renewed his acquaintance with the 
lively actress. 

“ What a change !” cried both 


56 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ The strolling player risen into celebrity !” 

“And the runaway boy polished into fashion !” 

“You are handsomer than ever, Fanny.” 

“I return the compliment,” replied Fanny, with a 
curtsy. 

And now Godolphin became a constant attendant at 
the theater. This led him into a mode of life quite dif- 
ferent from that which he had lately cultivated. 

There are in London two sets of idle men : one set, the 
butterflies of balls ; the loungers of the regular walks of 
society ; diners-out ; the “ old familiar faces,” seen every- 
where, known to every one : the other set, a more wild, ir- 
regular, careless race, who go little into parties, and vote 
balls a nuisance ; who live in clubs ; frequent theaters ; 
drive about late o’ nights in mysterious-looking vehicles, and 
enjoy a vast acquaintance among the Aspasias of pleasure. 
These are the men who are the critics of theatricals : black- 
neckclothed and well- booted, they sit in their boxes and 
decide on the ankles of a dancer or the voice of a singer. 
They have a smattering of literature, and use a great deal 
of French in their conversation : they have something of 
romance in their composition, and have been known to 
marry for love. In short, there is in their whole nature a 
more roving, liberal, Continental character of dissipation, 
than belongs to the cold, tame, dull, prim, hedge-clipped 
indolence of more national exquisitism. Into this set, out 
of the other set, fell young Godolphin ; and oh 1 the merry 
mornings at actresses’ houses ; the jovial suppers after the 
play ; the buoyancy, the brilliancy, the esprit , with which 


GODOLPHIN. 


51 

the hours, from midnight to cockcrow, were often pelted 
with rose-leaves and drowned in Rhenish. 

By degrees, however, as Godolphin warmed into his 
attendance at the playhouses, the fine intellectual some- 
thing that lay yet undestroyed at his heart stirred up emo- 
tions which he felt his more vulgar associates were unfitted 
to share. 

There is that in theatrical representation which per- 
petually awakens whatever romance belongs to our char- 
acter. The magic lights ; the pomp of scene ; the palace ; 
the camp ; the forest ; the midnight wold ; the moonlight 
reflected on the water ; the melody of the tragic rhythm ; 
the grace of the comic wit ; the strange art that gives 
such meaning to the poet’s lightest word ; — the fair, false, 
exciting life that is detailed before us — crowding into 
some three little hours all that our most busy ambition 
could desire — love, enterprise, war, glory ! the kindling 
exaggeration of the sentiments which belong to the stage 
— like our own in our boldest moments : all these appeals 
to our finer senses are not made in vain. Our taste for 
castle-building and visions deepens upon us ; and we chew 
a mental opium which stagnates all the other faculties, but 
wakens that of the ideal. 

Godolphin was peculiarly fascinated by the stage ; he 
loved to steal away from his companions, and, alone, and 
unheeded, to feast his mind on the unreal stream of exist- 
ence that mirrored images so beautiful. And oh ! while 
yet we are young — while yet the dew lingers on the green 
leaf of spring— while ail the brighter, the more entorpris* 

5 * 


GODOLPHIN. 


08 

Ing part of the future is to come— while we know not 
whether the true life may not be visionary and excited as 
the false — how deep and rich a transport is it to see, to 
feel, to hear Shakspeare’s conceptions made actual , though 
all imperfectly, and only for an hour 1 Sweet Arden ! are 
we in thy forest ? — thy “ shadowy groves and unfrequented 
glens?” Rosalind, Jaques, Orlando, have you indeed a 
being upon earth? Ah! this is true enchantment! and 
when we turn back to life, we turn from the colors which 
the Claude glass breathes over a winter’s landscape to the 
nakedness of the landscape itself ! 


1 


CHAPTER IX. 

PHE LEGACY — A NEW DEFORMITY IN SAVILLE — THE NATURE 0» 
WORLDLY LIAISON — GODOLPHIN LEAVES ENGLAND. 

But then, it is not always a sustainer of the stage delu- 
sion to be enamored of an actress : it takes us too much 
behind the scenes. Godolphin felt this so strongly that 
he liked those plays least in which Fanny performed. Off 
the stage her character had so little romance, that he 
could not deceive himself into the romance of her char- 
acter before the lamps. Luckily, however, Fanny did not 
attempt Shakspeare. She was inimitable in vaudeville, in 
farce, and in the lighter comedy ; but she had prudently 
abandoned tragedy in deserting the barn. She was a 


GODOLPHIN. 


59 


girl of much talent and quickness, and discovered exactly 
the path in which her vanity could walk without being 
wounded. And there was a simplicity, a frankness, about 
her manner, that made her a most agreeable companion. 

The attachment between her and Godolphin was not 
very violent ; it was a silken tie, which opportunity could 
knit and snap a hundred times over without doing much 
wrong to the hearts it so lightly united. Over Godolphin 
the attachment itself had no influence, while the effects of 
die attachment had an influence so great. 

One night, after an absence from town of two or three 
days, Godolphin returned home from the theater, and 
found among the letters waiting his arrival one from his 
father. It was edged with black; the seal, too, was black. 
Godolphin's heart misgave him : tremblingly he opened it, 
and read as follows : 

“ Dear Percy, — I have news for you, which I do not 
know whether I should call good or bad. On the one 
hand, your cousin, that old oddity, Harry Johnstone, is 
dead, and has left you, out of his immense fortune, the 
poor sum of twenty thousand pounds. But mark ! on 
condition that you leave the Guards, and either reside with 
me, or at least leave London, till your majority is attained. 
If you refuse these conditions you lose the legacy. It is 
rather strange that this curious character should take such 
pains with your morals, and yet not leave me a single shil- 
ling. But justice is out of fashion nowadays ; your showy 
virtues only are the rage. I beg, if you choose to come 
down here, that you will get me twelve yards of house- 
flannel; I inclose a pattern of the quality. Snugg, in 


60 


GODOLPHIN. 


Oxford Street, near Tottenham Court Road, is my man 
It is certainly a handsome thing in old Johnstone: but so 
odd to omit me. How did you get acquainted with him? 
The twenty thousand pounds will, however, do much for 
the poor property. Pray take care of it, Percy, — pray do. 

“I have had a touch of the gout, for the first time. I 
have been too luxurious : by proper abstinence, I trust to 
bring it down. Compliments to that smooth rogue, Saville. 

“ Your affectionate, A. G. 

" P. S. — Discharged Old Sally for flirting with the 
butcher’s boy : flirtations of that sort make meat weigh 
much heavier. Bess is my only she-helpmate now, besides 
the old creature who shows the ruins : so much the better. 
What an eccentric creature that Johnstone was ! I hate 
eccentric people.” 

The letter fell from Percy’s hands. And this, then, was 
the issue of his single interview with the poor old man ! 
It was events like these, wayward and strange (events 
which checkered his whole life), that, secretly to himself, 
tinged Gfodolphin’s character with superstition. He after- 
ward dealt con amove with fatalities and influences. 

You may be sure that he did not sleep much that night. 
Early the next morning he sought Saville, and imparted 
to him the intelligence he had received. 

“Droll enough 1” said Saville, languidly, and more than 
a little displeased at this generosity to Godolphin from 
another ; for, like all small-hearted persons, he was jeal- 
ous ; “droll enough ! Hem ! and you never knew him but 
once, and then he abused me ? I wonder at that ; I was 
very obliging to his vulgar son.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


61 


“ What I he had a son, then ?” 

“ Some two-legged creature of that sort, raw and bony, 
dropped into London, like a ptarmigan, wild, and scared 
out of his wits. Old Johnstone was in the country, taking 
care of his wife, who had lost the use of her limbs ever 
since she had been married ; — caught a violent — husband 
— the first day of wedlock 1 The boy, sole son and heir, 
came up to town at the age of discretion ; got introduced 
to me ; I patronized him ; brought him into a decent de- 
gree of fashion ; played a few games at cards with him ; 
won some money; would not win any more; advised him 
to leave off ; too young to play ; neglected my advice ; 
went on, and, d — n the fellow 1 if he did not cut his throat 
one morning; and the father, to my astonishment, laid the 
blame upon me !” 

Godolphin stood appalled in speechless disgust. He 
never loved Saville from that hour. 

“In fact,” resumed Saville, carelessly, “he had lost very 
considerably. His father was a stern, hard man, and the 
poor boy was frightened at the thought of his displeasure. 
I suppose Monsieur Papa imagined me a sort of moral 
ogre, eating up all the little youths that fall in my way 1 
since he leaves you twenty thousand pounds, on condition 
that you take care of yourself, and shun the castle I live 
in. Well, well 1 Tis all very flattering I And where will 
you go? To Spain?” 

This story affected Percy sensibly. He regretted deeply 
that he had not sought out the bereaved father, and been 
of some comfort to his later hours. He appreciated all 

6 


G2 


GODOLPHIN. 


that warmth of sympathy, that delicacy of heart, which had 
made the old man compassionate his young relation’s un- 
friended lot, and couple his gift with a condition, likely, 
perhaps, to limit Percy’s desires to the independence thus 
bestowed, and certain to remove his more tender years 
from a scene of constant contagion. Thus melancholy and 
thoughtful, Godolphin repaired to the house of the now 
famous, the now admired Miss Millinger. 

Fanny received the good news of his fortune with a 
smile, and the bad news of his departure from England 
with a tear. There are some attachments, of which we so 
easily sound the depth, that the one never thinks of exact- 
ing from the other the sacrifices that seem inevitable to 
more earnest affections. Fanny never dreamed of leaving 
her theatrical career and accompanying Godolphin ; Go- 
dolphin never dreamed of demanding it. These are the 
connections of the great world : my good reader, learn the 
great world as you look at them ! 

All was soon settled. Godolphin was easily disembar- 
rassed of his commission. Six hundred a year from his 
fortune was allowed him during his minority. He insisted 
on sharing this allowance with his father ; the moiety left 
to himself was quite sufficient for all that a man so young 
could require. At the age of little more than seventeen, 
but with a character which premature independence had 
half formed, and also half enervated, the young Godolphin 
saw the shores of England recede before him, and felt 
himself alone in the universe, — the lord of his own fate. 


GODOLPHIN. 


<53 


CHAPTER X. 

THE EDUCATION OF CONSTANCE’S MIND. 

Meanwhile, Constance Vernon grew up in woman- 
hood and beauty. All around her contributed to feed that 
stern remembrance which her father’s dying words had 
bequeathed. Naturally proud, quick, susceptible, she felt 
slights, often merely incidental, with a deep and brooding 
resentment. The forlorn and dependent girl could not, 
indeed, fail to meet with many bitter proofs that her situ- 
ation was not fogotten by a world in which prosperity and 
station are the cardinal virtues. Many a loud whisper, 
many an intentional “aside,” reached her haughty ear, and 
colored her pale cheek. Such accidents increased her 
early -formed asperity of thought; chilled the gushing 
flood of her young affections ; and sharpened, with a re- 
lentless edge, her bitter and caustic hatred to a society she 
deemed at once insolent and worthless. To a taste intui- 
tively fine and noble, the essential vulgarities, -j-the fierce- 
ness to-day ; the cringing to-morrow ; the veneration for 
power ; the indifference to virtue, which characterized the 
framers and rulers of “ society,” — could not but bring con- 
tempt as well as anger; and amid the brilliant circles, to 
which so many aspirers looked up with hopeless ambition, 
Constance moved only to ridicule, to loathe, to despise. 


64 


GODOLPHIN. 


So strong, so constantly nourished, was this sentiment 
of contempt, that it lasted with equal bitterness when 
Constance afterward became the queen and presider over 
that great world in which she now shone, — to dazzle, but 
not to rule. What at first might have seemed an exag- 
gerated and insane prayer on the part of her father, grew, 
as her experience ripened, a natural and laudable com- 
mand. She was thrown entirely with that party among 
whom were his early friends and his late deserters. She 
resolved to humble the crested arrogance around her, as 
much from her own desire, as from the wish to obey and 
avenge her father. From contempt for rank rose naturally 
the ambition of rank. The young beauty resolved to 
banish love from her heart ; to devote herself to one aim 
and object; to win title and station, that she might be 
able to give power and permanence to her disdain of those 
qualities in others ; and in the secrecy of night she re- 
peated the vow which had consoled her father’s death-bed, 
and solemnly resolved to crush love within her heart, and 
marry solely for station and for power. 

As the daughter of so celebrated a politician, it was 
natural that Constance should take interest in politics. 
She lent to every discussion of state events an eager and 
thirsty ear. She embraced with masculine ardor such 
sentiments as were then considered the extreme of liber- 
ality ; and she looked on that career which society limits 
to man , as the noblest, the loftiest in the world. She 
regretted that she was a woman, and prevented from per- 
sonally carrying into effect the sentiments she passionately 


GODOLPHIN. 


6ft 


espoused. Meanwhile, she did not neglect, nor suffer to 
rust, the bright weapon of a wit which embodied, at times, 
all the biting energies of her contempt. To insolence she 
retorted sarcasm ; and, early able to see that society, like 
virtue, must be trampled upon in order to yield forth its 
incense, she rose into respect by the hauteur of her man- 
ner, the bluntness of her satire, the independence of her 
mind, far more than by her various accomplishments and 
her unrivaled beauty. 

Of Lady Erpingham she had nothing to complain ; 
kind, easy, and characterless, her protectress sometimes 
wounded her by carelessness, but never through design ; 
on the contrary, the countess at once loved and admired 
her, and was as auxious that her •protegee should form 
a brilliant alliance as if she had been her own daughter. 
Constance, therefore, loved Lady Erpingham with sincere 
and earnest warmth, and endeavored to forget all the com- 
monplaces and littlenesses which made up the mind of her 
protectress, and which, otherwise, would have been pre- 
cisely of that nature to which one like Constance would 
have been the least indulgent. 


e* 


E 


GODOLPHIN. 


66 


CHAPTER XI. 

CONVERSATION BETWEEN LADY ERPINGHAM AND CONSTANCE — 
FURTHER PARTICULARS OF GODOLPHIN’s FAMILY, ETC. 

Lady Erpingham was a widow ; her jointure, for she 
had been an heiress and a duke’s daughter, was large ; and 
the noblest mansion of all the various seats possessed by 
the wealthy and powerful house of Erpingham had been 
allotted by her late lord for her widowed residence. Thither 
she went punctually on the first of every August, and quit- 
ted it punctually on the eighth of every January. 

It was some years after the date of Godolphin’s de- 
parture from England, and the summer following the 
spring in which Constance had been “brought out;” and, 
after a debut of such splendor that at this day (many years 
subsequent to that period) the sensation she created is not 
only a matter of remembrance but of conversation, Con- 
stance, despite the triumph of her vanity, was not dis- 
pleased to seek some refuge, even from admiration, among 
the shades of Wendover Castle. 

“ When, ,; said she one morning, as she was walking 
with Lady Erpingham upon the terrace beneath the win- 
dows of the castle, which overlooked the country for miles, 
—“when will you go with me, dear Lady Erpingham, to 
Bee those ruins of which I have heard so much and so 


OODOLPHIN. 


61 


often, and which I have never been able to persuade you 
to visit ? Look ! the day is so clear that we can see their 
outline now — there, to the right of that church! — they 
cannot be so very far from Wendover.” 

“Godolphin Priory is about twelve miles off,” said 
Lady Erpingham ; “but it may seem nearer, for it is 
situated on the highest spot of the county. Poor Arthur 
Godolphin ! he is lately dead !” Lady Erpingham sighed. 

“I never heard you speak of him before.” 

“ There might be a reason for my silence, Constance. 
He was the person, of all whom I ever saw, who appeared 
to me, when I was your age, the most fascinating. Not, 
Constance, that I was in love with him, or that he gave 
me any reason to become so through gratitude for any af- 
fection on his part. It was a girl’s fancy, idle and short- 
lived — nothing more 1” 

“And the young Godolphin — the boy who, at so early 
an age, has made himself known for his eccentric life 
abroad 

“ Is his son ; the present owner of those ruins, and, I 
fear, of little more, unless it be the remains of a legacy 
received from a relation.” 

“Was the father extravagant, then ?” 

“ Not he ! But his father had exceeded a patrimony 
greatly involved, and greatly reduced from its ancient im- 
portance. All the lands we see yonder— those villages, those 

woods once belonged to the Godolphins. They were the 

most ancient and the most powerful family in this part of 
England ; but the estates dwindled away with each successive 


68 


GODOLPHIN. 


generation, and when Arthur Godolphin, my Godolphin* 
succeeded to the property, nothing was left for him but 
the choice of three evils — a profession, obscurity, or a 
wealthy marriage. My father, who had long destined me 
for Lord Erpingham, insinuated that it was in me that 
Mr. Godolphin wished to find the resource I have last 
mentioned, and that in such resource was my only attrac- 
tion in his eyes. I have some reason to believe he pro- 
posed to the duke ; but he was silent to me, from whom f 
girl as I was, he might have been less certain of refusal. ” 

“ What did he at last ?” 

“ Married a lady who was supposed to be an heiress ; 
but he had scarcely enjoyed her fortune a year before it 
became the subject of a lawsuit. He lost the cause and 
the dowry ; and, what was worse, the expenses of litiga- 
tion, and the sums he was obliged to refund, reduced him 
to what, for a man of his rank, might be considered abso- 
lute poverty. He was thoroughly chagrined and soured 
by this event ; retired to those ruins, or rather to the small 
cottage that adjoins them, and there lived to the day of his 
death, shunning society, and certainly not exceeding his 
income.” 

“ I understand you : he became parsimonious.” 

“To the excess which his neighbors called miserly.” 

“And his wife ?” 

“ Poor woman I she was a mere fine lady, and died, I 
believe, of the same vexation which nipped, not the life, 
but the heart of her husband.” 

“ Had they only one son ?” 


GODOLPHIN. 


69 


“ Only the present owner : Percy, I think — yes, Percy ; 
it was his mother’s surname — Percy Godolphin.” 

“And how came this poor boy to be thrown so early on 
the world? Did he quarrel with Mr. Godolphin?” 

“ I believe not : but when Percy was about sixteen, he 
left the obscure school at which he was educated, and 
resided for some little time with a relation, Augustus Sa- 
ville. He stayed with him in London for about a year, 
and went everywhere with him, though so mere a boy. 
His manners were, I well remember, assured and formed. 
A relation left him some moderate legacy, and afterward 
he went abroad alone.” 

“But the ruins! The late Mr. Godolphin, notwith- 
standing his reserve, did not object to indulging the curi- 
osity of his neighbors ?” 

“Ho: he was proud of the interest the ruins of his 
hereditary mansion so generally excited, — proud of their 
celebrity in print-shops and in tours ; but he himself was 
never seen. The cottage in which he lived, though it ad- 
joins the ruins, was of course sacred from intrusion, and is 
so walled in, that that great delight of English visitors 
at show-places — peeping in at windows — was utterly for- 
bidden. However that be, during Mr. Godolphin’s life I 
never had courage to visit what, to me, would have been 
a melancholy scene: now, the pain would be somewhat 
less; and since you wish it, suppose we drive over and 
visit the ruins to-morrow. It is the regular day for seeing 
them, by-the-by.” 

“Hot, dear Lady Erpingham, if it give you the least ” 


GODOLPHIN. 


to 


“My sweet girl,” interrupted Lady Erpingbam, when a 
Bervant approached to announce visitors at the castle. 

“ Will you go into the saloon, Constance ?” said the 
elder lady, as, thinking still of love and Arthur Godolphin, 
she took her way to her dressing-room to renovate her 
rouge. 

It would have been a pretty amusement to one of the 
lesser devils, if, during the early romance of Lady Erping- 
ham’s feelings toward Arthur Godolphin, he had foretold 
her the hour when she would tell how Arthur Godolphin 
died a miser — just five minutes before she repaired to the 
toilet to decorate the cheek of age for the heedless eyes of 
a common acquaintance. ’Tis the world’s way ! For my 
part, I would undertake to find a better world in that 
rookery opposite my windows. 


CHAPTER XII 

DESCRIPTION OF GODOLPHIN’S HOUSE — THE FIRST INTERVIEW — 
ITS EFFECT ON CONSTANCE. 

“ But,” asked Constance, as, the next day, Lady Erp- 
ingham and herself were performing the appointed pil- 
grimage to the ruins of Godolphin Priory, “ if the late 
Mr. Godolphin, as he grew in years, acquired a turn of 
mind so penurious, was he not enabled to leave his son 
some addition to the pied de terre we are about to visit?” 


GODOLPHIN. 


71 


“ He must certainly have left some ready money,” 
answered Lady Erpingham. “ But is it, after all, likely 
that so young a man as Percy Godolphin could have lived 
in the manner he has done without incurring debts? It 
most probable that he had some recourse to those per- 
sons so willing to encourage the young and extravagant, 
and that repayment to them will more than swallow up 
any savings his father might have amassed.” 

“ True enough I” said Constance ; and the conversation 
glided into remarks on avaricious fathers and prodigal 
sons. Constance was witty on the subject, and Lady Erp- 
ingham laughed herself into excellent humor. 

It was considerably past noon when they arrived at the 
ruins. The carriage stopped before a small inn, at the 
entrance of a dismantled park ; and, taking advantage of 
the beauty of the day, Lady Erpingham and Constance 
walked slowly toward the remains of the Priory. 

The scene, as they approached, was wild and picturesque 
in the extreme. A wide and glassy lake lay stret?hed 
beneath them : on the opposite side stood the ruins. The 
large oriel window — the Gothic arch — the broken, yet still 
majestic column, all embrowned and mossed with age, were 
still spared, and now mirrored themselves in the waveless 
and silent tide. Fragments of stone lay around for some 
considerable distance, and the whole was backed by hills, 
covered with gloomy and thick woods of pine and fir. To 
the left, they saw the stream which fed the lake, stealing 
away through grassy banks, overgrown with the willow 
and pollard oak: and there, from one or two cottages, 


72 


GODOLPHIN. 


only caught in glimpses, thin wreaths of smoke rose in 
spires against the clear sky. To the right, the ground 
was broken into a thousand glens and hollows : the deer- 
loved fern, the golden broom, were scattered about pro- 
fusely ; and here and there were dense groves of pollards ; 
or, at very rare intervals, some single tree decaying (for 
all round bore the seal of vassalage to Time), but mighty, 
and greenly venerable in its decay. 

As they passed over a bridge that, on either side of the 
stream, emerged, as it were, from a thick copse, they 
caught a view of the small abode that adjoined the ruins. 
It seemed covered entirely with ivy; and, so far from 
diminishing, tended rather to increase the romantic and 
imposing effect of the crumbling pile from which it 
grew. 

They opened a little gate at the other extremity of the 
bridge, and in a few minutes more they stood at the 
entrance to the Priory. 

It was an oak door, studded with nails. The jasmine 
grew upon either side ; and, to descend to a commonplace 
matter, they had some difficulty in finding the bell among 
the leaves in which it was imbedded. When they had 
found and touched it, its clear and lively sound rang out 
in that still and lovely, though desolate spot, with an 
effect startling and impressive from its contrast. There 
is something very fairylike in the cheerful voice of a bell 
sounding among the wilder scenes of nature, particularly 
where Time advances his claim to the sovereignty of the 
landscape ; for the cheerfulness is a little ghostly, and 


GODOLPHIN. 


73 


might serve well enough for a tocsin to the elvish hordes 
whom our footsteps may be supposed to disturb. 

An old woman, in the neat peasant dress of our country, 
when, taking a little from the fashion of the last century 
(the cap and the kerchief), it assumes no ungraceful cos- 
tume, — replied to their summons. She was the solitary 
cicerone of the place. She had lived there, a lone and 
childless widow, for thirty years; and, of all the persons I 
have ever seen, would furnish forth the best heroine to one 
of those pictures of homely life which Wordsworth has 
dignified with the patriarchal tenderness of his genius. 

They wound a narrow passage, and came to the ruins of 
the great hall. Its gothic arches still sprang lightly up- 
ward on either side ; and, opening a large stone box that 
stood in a recess, the old woman showed them the gloves, 
and the helmet, and the tattered banners which had be- 
longed to that Godolphin who had fought side by side 
with Sidney when he, whose life— as the noblest of British 
lyrists hath somewhere said — was “poetry put into action,”* 
received his death-wound in the field of Zutphen. 

Thence they ascended, by the dilapidated and crumbling 
staircase, to a small room, in which the visitors were always 
expected to rest themselves, and enjoy the scene in the 
garden below. A large chasm yawned where the case- 
ment once was ; and round this aperture the ivy wreathed 
itself in fantastic luxuriance. A sort of ladder, suspended 
from this chasm to the ground, afforded a convenience for 


* Campbell. 

7 


74 


GODOLPHIN. 


those who were tempted to a short excursion by the view 
without. 

And the view was tempting ! A smooth green lawn, 
surrounded by shrubs and flowers, was ornamented in the 
center by a fountain. The waters were, it is true, dried 
up ; but the basin, and the “ Triton with his wreathed 
shell, ” still remained. A little to. the right was an old 
monkish sun-dial ; and through the green vista you caught 
the glimpse of one of those gray, grotesque statues with 
which the taste of Elizabeth’s day shamed the classic 
chisel. 

There was something quiet and venerable about the 
whole place ; and when the old woman said to Constance, 
“Would not you like, my lady, to walk down and look at 
the sun-dial and the fountain ?” Constance felt she required 
nothing more to yield to her inclination. Lady Erping- 
ham, less adventurous, remained in the ruined chamber ; 
and the old woman, naturally enough, honored the elder 
lady with her company. 

Constance, therefore, descended the rude steps alone. 
As she paused by the fountain, an indescribable and deli- 
cious feeling of repose stole over a mind that seldom 
experienced any sentiment so natural or so soft. The 
hour, the stillness, the scene, all conspired to lull the heart 
into that dreaming and half unconscious reverie in which 
poets would suppose the hermits of elder times to have 
wasted a life, indolent, and yet scarcely, after all, unwise. 
“ Methinks,” she inly soliloquized, “ while I look around, 
I feel as if I could give up my objects of life ; renounce 


GODOLPHIN. T5 

my hopes ; forget to be artificial and ambitious ; live in 
these ruins, and ” (whispered the spirit within), “ loved 
and loving, fulfill the ordinary doom of woman.” 

Indulging a mood which the proud and restless Con- 
stance, who despised love as the poorest of human weak- 
nesses, though easily susceptible to all other species of 
romance, had scarcely ever known before, she wandered 
away from the lawn into one of the alleys cut amid the 
grove around. Caught by the murmur of an unseen brook, 
she tracked it through the trees, as its sound grew louder 
and louder on her ear, till at length it stole upon her sight. 
The sun, only winning through the trees at intervals, played 
capriciously upon the cold and dark waters as they glided 
on, and gave to her, as the same effect has done to a thou- 
sand poets, ample matter for a simile or a moral. 

She approached the brook, and came unawares upon 
the figure of a young man, leaning against a stunted tree 
that overhung the waters, and occupied with the idle 
amusement of dropping pebbles in the stream. She saw 
only his profile ; but that view is, in a fine countenance, 
almost always the most striking and impressive, and it was 
eminently so in the face before her. The stranger, who 
was scarcely removed from boyhood, was dressed in deep 
mourning. He seemed slight, and small of stature. A 
traveling cap of sables contrasted, not hid, light-brown 
hair of singular richness and beauty. His features were 
of that pure and severe Greek of which the only fault is, 
that in the very perfection of the chiseling of the features 
there seems something hard and stern. The complexion 


?6 


GODOLPHIN. 


was pale, even to wanness; and the whole cast and con- 
tour of the head were full of intellect, and betokening 
that absorption of mind which cannot be marked in any 
one without exciting a certain vague curiosity and interest. 

So dark and wondrous are the workings of our nature, 
that there are scarcely any of us, however light and un- 
thinking, who would not be arrested by the countenance 
of one in deep reflection — who would not pause, and long 
to pierce into the mysteries that were agitating that world, 
most illimitable by nature, but often most narrowed by 
custom — the world within. 

And this interest, powerful as it is, spelled and arrested 
Constance at once. She remained for a minute gazing on 
the countenance of the young stranger, and then she — the 
most self-possessed and stately of human creatures — blush- 
ing deeply, and confused though unseen, turned lightly 
away, and stopped not on her road till she regained the old 
chamber and Lady Erpingham. 

The old woman was descanting upon the merits of the 
late lord of Godolphin Priory : 

“ For though they called him close, and so forth, my 
lady, yet he was generous to others ; it was only himself he 
pinched. But, to be sure, the present squire won’t take 
after him there.” 

“Has Mr. Percy Godolphin been here lately?” asked 
Lady Erpingham. 

“ He is at the cottage now, my lady,” replied the old 
woman. “ He came two days ago.” 

“Is he like his father ?” 


GODOLPHIN. 


ft 

u Oh ! not near so fine-looking a gentleman ! much 
smaller, and quite pale-like. He seems sickly : them for- 
eign parts do nobody no good. He was as fine a lad at 
sixteen years old as ever I seed ; but now he is not like 
the same thing.” 

So then it was evidently Percy Godolphin whom Con- 
stance had seen by the brook — the owner of a home with- 
out coffers, and estates without a rent-roll — the Percy 
Godolphin, of whom, before he had attained the age when 
others have left the college, or even the school, every one 
had learned to speak — some favorably, all with eagerness. 
Constance felt a vague interest respecting him spring up 
in her mind : she checked it, for it was a sin in her eyes 
to think with interest on a man neither rich nor powerful ; 
and as she quitted the ruins with Lady Erpingham, she 
communicated to the latter her adventure. She was, how- 
ever, disingenuous; for though Godolphin’s countenance 
was exactly of that cast which Constance most admired, 
she described him just as the old woman had done; and 
Lady Erpingham figured to herself, from the description, 
a little yellow man, with white hair and a turned-up nose. 
Oh Truth 1 what a hard path is thine I Does any keep it 
for three inches together in the commonest trifle ? — and 
yet two sides of my library are filled with histories ! 


7 * 


78 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

4 BALL ANNOUNCED — GODOLPHIN’s VISIT TO WENDOVER CASTLE — 
HIS MANNERS AND CONVERSATION. 

Lady Erpingham (besides her daughter, Lady Eleanor, 
married to Mr. Clare, a county member of large fortune) 
was blessed with one son. 

The present earl had been for the last two years abroad. 
He had never, since his accession to his title, visited Wen- 
dover Castle; and Lady Erpingham one morning ex- 
perienced the delight of receiving a letter from him, dated 
Dover, and signifying his intention of paying her a visit. 
In honor of this e^ent, Lady Erpingham resolved to give 
a grand ball. Cards were issued to all the families in the 
county; and, among others, to Mr. Godolphin. 

On the third day after this invitation had been sent to 
the person I have last named, as Lady Erpingham and 
Constance were alone in the saloon, Mr. Percy Godolphin 
was announced. Constance blushed as she looked up, and 
Lady Erpingham was struck by the nobleness of his ad- 
dress and the perfect self-possession of his manner. And 
yet nothing could be so different as was his deportment 

from that which she had been accustomed to admire 

from that manifested by the exquisites of the day. The 
calm, the nonchalance, the artificial smile of languor, the 
evenness, so insipid, yet so irreproachable, of English man- 


GODOLPHIN. 


79 


ners when considered most polished, — all this was the re- 
verse of Godolphin’s address and air. In short, in all he 
said or did there was something foreign, something unfa- 
miliar. He was abrupt and enthusiastic in conversation, 
and used gestures in speaking. His countenance lighted 
up at every word that broke from him on the graver sub- 
jects of discussion. You felt, indeed, with him, that you 
were with a man of genius — a wayward and a spoiled man, 
who had acquired his habits in solitude, but his graces in 
the world. 

They conversed about the ruins of the Priory, and Con- 
stance expressed her admiration of their romantic and 
picturesque beauty. “Ah I” said he, smiling, but with a 
slight blush, in which Constance detected something of 
pain ; tf I heard of your visit to my poor heaps of stone. 
My father took great pleasure in the notice they attracted. 
When a proud man has not riches to be proud of, he grows 
proud of the signs of his poverty itself. This was the 
case with my poor father. Had he been rich, the ruins 
would not have existed: he would have rebuilt the old 
mansion. As he was poor, he valued himself on their 
existence, and fancied magnificence in every handful of 
moss. But all life is delusion : all pride, all vanity, all 
pomp, are equally deceit. Like the Spanish hidalgo, we 
put on spectacles when we eat our cherries, in order that 
they may seem ten times as big as they are 1” 

Constance smiled ; and Lady Erpingham, who had more 
kindness than delicacy, continued her praises of the Priory 
and the scenery round it. 


80 


GODOLPHIN. 


“The old park,” said she, “with its wood and water, is 
so beautiful 1 It wants nothing but a few deer, just tame 
enough to come near the ruins, and wild enough to start 
away as you approach.” 

“Now you would borrow an attraction from wealth,” 
said Godolphin, who, unlike English persons in general, 
seemed to love alluding to his poverty: “it is not for the 
owner of a ruined Priory to consult the aristocratic en- 
chantments of that costly luxury, the Picturesque. Alas 1 
I have not even wherewithal to feed a few solitary par- 
tridges ; and I hear, that if I go beyond the green turf 
once a park, I shall be warned off forthwith, and my verj 
qualification disputed.” 

“Are you fond of shooting ?” said Lady Erpingham. 

“I fancy I should be; but I have never enjoyed the 
sport in England.” 

“Do pray come, then,” said Lady Erpingham, kindly, 
“and spend your first week in September here. Let me 
see: the first of the month will be next Thursday; dine 
with us on Wednesday. We have keepers and dogs here 
enough, thanks to Robert; so you need only bring your 
gun.” 

“You are very kind, dear Lady Erpingham,” said Go- 
dolphin warmly : “I accept your invitation at once.” 

“Your father was a very old friend of mine,” said tho 
lady, with a sigh. 

“He was an old admirer,” said the gentleman, with a 
bow 


aoDOLPniN. 


81 


CHAPTER XI Y. 

CONVERSATION BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE — THE COUN- 
TRY LIFE AND THE TOWN LIFE. 

And Godolphin came on the appointed Wednesday. 
He was animated that day even to brilliancy. Lady Erp- 
ingham thought him the most charming of men ; and 
even Constance forgot that he was no match for herself. 
Gifted and cultivated as she was, it was not without de- 
light that she listened to his glowing descriptions of 
scenery, and to his playful, yet somewhat melancholy 
strain of irony upon men and their pursuits. The pecu- 
liar features of her mind made her, indeed, like the latter 
more than she could appreciate the former; for in her 
nature there was more bitterness than sentiment. Still, 
his rich language and fluent periods, even in description, 
touched her ear and fancy, though they sank not to her 
heart ; and she yielded insensibly to the spells she would 
almost have despised in another. 

The next day, Constance, who was no very early riser, 
tempted by the beauty of the noon, strolled into the gar- 
dens. She was surprised to hear Godolphin’s voice behind 
her: she turned round, and he joined her. 

“I thought you were on your shooting expedition ?” 

“I have been shooting, and I am returned. I was out 
7* F 


GODOLPIIIN. 


by daybreak, and I came back at noon in the hope of being 
allowed to join you in your ride or walk.” 

Constance smilingly acknowledged the compliment; and 
as they passed up the straight walks of the old-fashioned 
and stately gardens, Godolphin turned the conversation 
upon the varieties of garden scenery; upon the poets who 
have described those varieties best; upon that difference 
between the town life and the country, on which the 
brothers of the minstrel craft have, in all ages, so glow- 
ingly insisted. In this conversation, certain points of con- 
trast between the characters of these two young persons 
might be observed. 

“I confess to you,” said Godolphin, “that I have little 
faith in the permanence of any attachment professed for 
the country by the inhabitants of cities. If we can occupy 
our minds solely with the objects around us, — if the brook, 
and the old tree, and the golden sunset, and the summer 
night, and the animal and homely life that we survey, — if 
these can fill our contemplation, and take away from us 
the feverish schemes of the future , — then indeed I can 
fully understand the reality of that tranquil and happy 
state which our elder poets have described as incident to 
a country life. But if we carry with us to the shade all 
the restless and perturbed desires of the city ; if we only 

employ present leisure in schemes for an agitated future, 

then it is in vain that we affect the hermit and fly to the 
retreat. The moment the novelty of green fields is over, 
and our projects are formed, we wish to hurry to the city 
to execute them. We have, in a word, made our retire* 


GODOLPHIN. 


83 


ment only a nursery for schemes now springing up and 
requiring to be transplanted.” 

. “You are right,” said Constance, quickly; “and who 
would pass life as if it were a dream ? It seems to me 
that we put retirement to the right use when we make it 
only subservient to our aims in the world.” 

“A strange doctrine for a young beauty,” thought Go- 
dolphin, “whose head ought to be full of groves and love.” 
li Then,” said he aloud, “ I must rank among those who 
abuse the purposes of retirement ; for I have hitherto been 
flattered to think that I enjoy it for itself. Despite the 
artificial life I have led, everything that speaks of nature 
has a voice that I can rarely resist. What feelings created 
in a city can compare with those that rise so gently and so 
unbidden within us when the trees and the waters are our 
only companions — our only sources of excitement and in- 
toxication ? Is not contemplation better than ambition ?” 

“ Can you believe it ?” said Constance, incredulously. 

“I do.” 

Constance smiled ; and there would have been contempt 
in that beautiful smile, had not Godolphin interested her 
in spite of herself. 


84 


GOBOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XY. 

THE FEELINGS OF CONSTANCE AND GODOLPHIN TOWARD EACH OTHER 

— THE DISTINCTION IN TIIEIR CHARACTERS — REMARKS ON THE 

EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THE WORLD UPON GODOLPHIN— THE RIDE 

— RURAL DESCRIPTIONS — OMENS — THE FIRST INDISTINCT CON- 
FESSION. 

Every day, at the hour in which Constance was visible, 
G-odolphin had loaded the keeper, and had returned to 
attend upon her movements. They walked and rode to- 
gether; and in the evening, Godolphin hung over her 
chair and listened to her songs ; for though, as I have 
before said, she had but little science in instrumental 
music, her voice was rich and soft beyond the pathos of 
ordinary singers. 

Lady Erpingham saw, with secret delight, what she be- 
lieved to be a growing attachment. She loved Constance 
for herself, and Godolphin for his father’s memory. She 
thought again and again what a charming couple they 
would make — so handsome — so gifted : and if Prudence 
whispered also — so poor, the kind countess remembered 
that she herself had saved from her ample jointure a sum 
which she had always designed as a dowry for Constance, 
and which, should Godolphin be the bridegroom, she felt 
she should have a tenfold pleasure in bestowing. With 
this fortune, which would place them, at least, in inde- 
pendence, she united in her kindly imagination the im- 


GODOLPHIN. 


85 


portance which she imagined Godolphin’s talents must 
ultimately acquire ; and for which, in her aristocratic esti- 
mation, she conceived the senate the only legitimate sphere. 
She said, she hinted, nothing to Constance ; but she suf- 
fered nature, youth, and companionship to exercise their 
sway. 

And the complexion of Godolphin’s feelings for Con- 
stance Yernon did indeed resemble love — was love itself, 
though rather love in its romance than its reality. What 
were those of Constance for him ? She knew not herself 
at that time. Had she been of a character one shade less 
ambitious, or less powerful, they would have been love, 
and love of no common character. But within her musing, 
and self-possessed, and singularly constituted mind, there 
was, as yet, a limit to every sentiment, a chain to the wings 
of every thought, save those of one order ; and that order 
was not of love. There was a marked difference, in all 
respects, between the characters of the two ; and it was 
singular enough, that that of the woman was the less 
romantic, and composed of the simpler materials. 

A volume of Wordsworth’s most exquisite poetry had 
then just appeared. “ Is not this wonderful !” said Go- 
dolphin, reciting some of those lofty but refining thoughts 
which characterize the Pastor of modern poets. 

Constance shook her head. 

“What! you do not admire it?” 

“I do not understand it.” 

“ What poetry do you admire ?” 

“ This.” 


8 


8G 


GODOLPHIN. 


It was Pope’s translation of the “Iliad.” 

“ Yes, yes, to be sure,” said Godolphin, a little vexed ; 

“ we all admire this in its way : but what else ?” 

Constance pointed to a passage in the “Palamon and 
Arcite” of Dry den. 

Godolphin threw down his Wordsworth. “You take 
an ungenerous advantage of me,” said he. “ Tell me 
something you admire, which, at least, I may have the 
privilege of disputing, — something that you think gen- 
erally neglected.” 

“ I admire few things that are generally neglected,” an- 
swered Constance, with her bright and proud smile. “ Fame 
gives its stamp to all metal that is of intrinsic value.” 

This answer was quite characteristic of Constance : she 
worshiped fame far more than the genius which won it. 

“ Well, then,” said Godolphin, “ let us see now if we can 
come to a compromise of sentiment;” and he took up the 
“Comus” of Milton. 

No one read poetry so beautifully : his voice was so 
deep and flexible ; and his countenance answered so well 
to every modulation of his voice. Constance was touched 
by the reader, but not by the verse. Godolphin had great 
penetration ; he perceived it, and turned to the speeches 
of Satan in “Paradise Lost.” The noble countenance 
before him grew luminous at once : the lip quivered, the 
eye sparkled ; the enthusiasm of Godolpjiin was not com- 
parable to that of Constance. The fact was, that the 
broad and common emotions of the intellectual character 
struck upon the right key. Courage, defiance, ambition, 


GODOLPHIN. 


87 


these she comprehended to their fullest extent ; but the 
rich subtleties of thought which mark the cold and bright 
page of the “Comus;” the noble Platonism — the high 
and rare love for what is abstractedly good, — these were 
not “sonorous and trumpet-speaking” enough for the 
heart of one meant by Nature for a heroine or a queen, not 
a poetess or a philosopher. 

But all that in literature was delicate, and half seen, 
and abstruse, had its peculiar charm for Godolphin. Of a 
reflective and refining mind, he had early learned to despise 
the common emotions of men : glory touched him not, and 
to ambition he had shut his heart. Love, with him — even 
though he had been deemed, nor unjustly, a man of gal- 
lantry and pleasure — love was not compounded of the 
ordinary elements of the passions. Full of dreams, and 
refinements, and intense abstractions, it was a love that 
seemed not homely enough for endurance, and of too rare 
a nature to hope for sympathy in return. 

And so it was in his intercourse with Constance ; both 
were continually disappointed. “ You do not feel this,” 
f;aid Constance. “ She cannot understand me,” sighed 
Godolphin. 

But we must not suppose — despite his refinements, and 
his reveries, and his love for the intellectual and the pure 
. — that Godolphin was of a stainless character or mind. 
He was one who, naturally full of decided and marked 
qualities, was, by the peculiar elements of our society, 
rendered a doubtful, motley, and indistinct character, tinc- 
tured by the frailties that leave us in a wavering state be« 


83 


GODOLPHIN. 


tween vice and virtue. The energies that had marked ms 
boyhood were dulled and crippled in the indolent life of 
the world. His wandering habits for the last few years — 
the soft and poetical existence of the South — had fed his 
natural romance, and nourished that passion for contem- 
plation which the intellectual man of pleasure so commonly 
forms ; for pleasure has a philosophy of its own — a sad, a 
fanciful, yet deep persuasion of the vanity of all things — a 
craving after the bright ideal : 

“ The desire of the moth for the star.” 

Solomon’s thirst for pleasure was the companion of his 
wisdom : satiety was the offspring of the one — discontent 
of the other. But this philosophy, though seductive, is of 
no wholesome nor useful character ; it is the philosophy of 
feelings, not principles — of the heart, not head. So with 
Godolphin : he was too refined in his moralizing to cling 
to what was moral. The simply good and the simply bad 
he left for us plain folks to discover. He was unattracted 
by the doctrines of right and wrong which serve for all 
men ; but he had some obscure and shadowy standard in 
his own mind by which he compared the actions of others. 
He had imagination, genius, even heart; was brilliant al- 
ways, sometimes profound ; graceful in society, yet seldom 
social : a lonely man, yet a man of the world ; generous to 
individuals, selfish to the mass. How many fine qualities 
worse than thrown away ! 

Who will not allow that he has met many such men ?— 
and who will not follow this man to his end ? 


GODOLPHIN. 


89 


One day (it was the last of Godolphin’s protracted visit), 
as the sun was waning to its close, and the time was un- 
usually soft and tranquil, Constance and Godolphin were 
returning slowly home from their customary ride. They 
passed by a small inn, bearing the common sign of the 
“ Chequers,” round which a crowd of peasants were as- 
sembled listening to the rude music which a wandering 
Italian boy drew from his guitar. The scene was rustic 
and picturesque; and as Godolphin reined in his horse 
and gazed on the group, he little dreamed of the fierce 
dark emotions with which, at a far distant period, he was 
destined to revisit that spot. 

“Our peasants,” said he, as they rode on, “require some 
humanizing relaxation like that we have witnessed. The 
music and the morris-dance have gone from England ; and 
instead of providing, as formerly, for the amusement of the 
grinded laborer, our legislators now regard with the most 
watchful jealousy his most distant approach to festivity. 
They cannot bear the rustic to be merry: disorder and 
amusement are words for the same offense.” 

“ I doubt,” said the earnest Constance, “ whether the 
legislators are not right. — For men given to amusement 
are easily enslaved. All noble thoughts are grave.” 

Thus talking, they passed a shallow ford in the stream. 
“We are not far from the Priory,” said Godolphin, point- 
ing lo its ruins, that rose grayly in the evening skies from 
the green woods around it. 

Constance sighed involuntarily. She felt pain in being 
reminded of the slender fortunes of her companion. Ascend* 
8 * 


GODOLPIIIN. 


90 

ing the gentle hill that swelled from the stream, she now, 
to turn the current of her thoughts, pointed admiringly to 
the blue course of the waters as they wound through their 
shagged banks. And deep, dark, rushing, even at that 
still hour, went the stream through the boughs that swept 
over its surface. Here and there the banks suddenly 
shelved down, mingling with the waves ; then abruptly 
they rose, overspread with thick and tangled umbrage, 
several feet above the level of the river. 

“How strange it is,” said Godolphin, “that at times a 
feeling comes over, as we gaze upon certain places, which 
associates the scene either with some dim-remembered and 
dreamlike images of the Past, or with a prophetic and 
fearful omen of the Future. As I gaze now upon the spot 

those banks — that whirling river — it seems as if my 

destiny claimed a mysterious sympathy with the scene: 

when how — wherefore — I know not — guess not: only 

this shadowy and chilling sentiment unaccountably creeps 
over me. Every one has known a similar strange, indis- 
tinct feeling at certain times and places, and with a similar 
inability to trace the cause. And yet, is it not singular 
that in poetry, which wears most feelings to an echo, I 
have never met with any attempt to describe it?” 

“ Because poetry,” said Constance, “ is, after all, but a 
hackneyed imitation of the most common thoughts, giving 
them merely a gloss by the brilliancy of verse. And yet 
how little poets know! They imagine , and they imitate ; 
—behold all their secrets !” 

“Perhaps you are right,” said Godolphin, musingly , 


GODOLPHIN. 


91 

“and I, who have often vainly fancied I had the poetical 
temperament, have been so chilled and sickened by the 
characteristics of the tribe, that I have checked its im- 
pulses with a sort of disdain ; and thus the Ideal, having 
no vent in me, preys within, creating a thousand undefined 
dreams and unwilling superstitions, making me enamored 
of the Shadowy and Unknown, and dissatisfying me with 
the petty ambitions of the world.” 

“ You will awake hereafter,” said Constance, earnestly. 

Godolphin shook his head, and replied not. 

Their way now lay along a green lane that gradually 
wound round a hill commanding a view of great richness 
and beauty Cottages, and spires, and groves gave life — 
but it was scattered and remote life — to the scene ; and 
the broad stream, whose waves, softened in the distance, 
did not seem to break the even surface of the tide, flowed 
onward, glowing in the sunlight, till it was lost among 
dark and luxuriant woods. 

Both once more arrested their horses by a common im- 
pulse, and both became suddenly silent as they gazed. Go- 
dolphin was the first to speak : it brought to his memory 
a scene in that delicious land, whose Southern loveliness 
Claude has transfused to the canvas and De Stael to the 
page. With his own impassioned and earnest language, 
he spoke to Constance of that scene and that country. 
Every tree before him furnished matter for his illustration 
or his contrast ; and, as she heard that magic voice, and 
speaking, too, of a country dedicated to love, Constance 
listened with glistening eyes, and a cheek which he — con- 


92 


GODOLPHIN. 


summate master of the secrets of womanhood — perceived 
was eloquent with thoughts which she knew not, but which 
he interpreted to the letter. 

“And in such a spot,” said he, continuing, and fixing 
his deep and animated gaze on her, — “in such a spot I 
could have stayed forever but for one recollection, one 
feeling — I should have been too much alone! In a wild, 
or a grand, or even a barren country, we may live in soli- 
tude and find fit food for thought; but not in one so soft, 
so subduing, as that which I saw and see. Love comes 
over us then in spite of ourselves ; and I feel — I feel now” 
—his voice trembled as he spoke — “ that any secret we 
may before have nursed, though hitherto unacknowledged, 
makes itself at length a voice. We are oppressed with the 
desire to be loved ; we long for the courage to say we love.” 

Never before had Godolphin, though constantly verging 
into sentiment, spoken to Constance in so plain a lan- 
guage. Eye, voice, cheek — all spoke. She felt that he 
had confessed he loved herl And was she not happy at 
that thought? She was : it was her happiest moment. 
But, in that sort of vague and indistinct shrinking from 
the subject with which a woman who loves hears a dis- 
closure of love from him on whose lips it is most sweet, 
she muttered some confused attempt to change the sub- 
ject, and quickened her horse’s pace. Godolphin did not 
renew the topic so interesting and so dangerous ; only, as 
with the winding of the road the landscape gradually faded 
from their view, he said, in a low voice, as if to himself, — - 
“ How long, how fondly, shall I remember this day 1” 


GODOLPHIN. 


98 


CHAPTER XYI. 

SODOLPHIN’s RETURN HOME — HIS SOLILOQUY — LORD ERPINGHAM’S 

ARRIVAL AT WENDOVER CASTLE THE EARL DESCRIBED HIS 

ACCOUNT OF GODOLPHIN’ S LIFE AT ROME. 

With a listless step Godolphin re-entered the threshold 
of his cottage home. He passed into a small chamber, 
which was yet the largest in his house. The poor and 
scanty furniture scattered around ; the old, tuneless, broken 
harpsichord ; the worn and tattered carpet ; the tenantless 
birdcage in the recess by the window; the book-shelves, 
containing some dozens of worthless volumes ; the sofa of 
the last century (when, if people knew comfort, they placed 
it not in lounging), small, narrow, highbacked, hard, and 
knotted : these, just* as his father had left, just as his 
boyhood had seen them, greeted him with a comfortless 
and chill, though familiar welcome. It was evening : he 
ordered a fire and lights; and, leaning his face on his 
hand as he contemplated the fitful and dusky outbreak- 
ings of the flame through the bars of the niggard aud 
contracted grate, he sat himself down to hold commune 
with his heart. 

“So, I love this woman,” said he, “do I? Have I not 
deceived myself? She is poor — no connection; she has 
nothing whereby to reinstate my house’s fortunes, to re- 
build this mansion, or to purchase yonder demesnes. I 


94 


GODOLPHIN. 


love her ! /, who have known the value of her sex so 
well, that I have said, again and again, I would not 
shackle life with a princess 1 Love may withstand posses- 
sion— true— but not time. In three years there would be 
no glory in the face of Constance, and I should be what? 
My fortunes, broken as they are, can support me alone, 
and with my few wants. But if married 1 the haughty 
Constance my wife ! Nay, nay, nay ! this must not be 
thought of! I, the hero of Paris ! the pupil of Saville ! 
I, to be so beguiled as even to dream of such a mad- 
ness ! 

“ Yet I have that within me that might make a stir in 
the world — I might rise. Professions are open ; the Di- 
plomacy, the House of Commons. What! Percy Godol- 
phin be ass enough to grow ambitious ! to toil, to fret, to 
slave, to answer fools on a first principle, and die at length 
of a broken heart or a lost place ! Pooh, pooh ! I, who 
despise your prime ministers, can scarcely stoop to their 
apprenticeship. Life is too short for toil. And what do 
men strive for ? — to enjoy : but why not enjoy without the 
toil ? And relinquish Constance ? Ay, it is but one wo- 
man lost 1” 

So ended the soliloquy of a man scarcely of age. The 
world teaches us its last lessons betimes; but then, lest we 
should have nothing left to acquire from its wisdom, it 
employs the rest of our life in unlearning all that it first 
taught. 

Meanwhile, the time approached when Lord Erping- 
ham was to arrive at Wendover Castle; and at length 


GODOLPHIN. 


95 


came the day itself. Naturally anxious to enjoy as ex- 
clusively as possible the company of her son the first day 
of his return from so long an absence, Lady Erpingham 
had asked no one to meet him. The earl’s heavy travel- 
ing carriage at length rolled clattering up the court-yard; 
and in a few minutes a tall man, in the prime of life, and 
borrowing some favorable effect as to person from the 
large cloak of velvet and furs which hung round him, 
entered the room, and Lady Erpingham embraced her 
son. The kind and familiar manner with which he an- 
swered her inquiries and congratulations was somewhat 
changed when he suddenly perceived Constance. Lord 
Erpingham was a cold man, and, like most cold men, 
ashamed of the evidence of affection. He greeted Con- 
stance very quietly ; and, as she thought, slightly : but 
his eyes turned to her. far more often than any friend of 
Lord Erpingham’s might ever have remarked those large 
round hazel eyes turn to any one before. 

When the earl withdrew to adjust his toilet for dinner, 
Lady Erpingham, as she wiped her eyes, could not help 
exclaiming to Constance, “ Is he not handsome ? — What 2 
figure !” 

Constance was a little addicted to flattery where she 
liked the one who was to be flattered, and she assented 
readily enough to the maternal remark. Hitherto, how- 
ever, she had not observed anything more in Lord Erping- 
ham than his height and his cloak : as he re-entered and 
led her to the dining-room, she took a better though still 
but a casual survey. 


96 


GODOLPHIN. 


Lord Erpingham was that sort of person of whom men 
always say, “What a prodigiously fine fellow 1” He was 
above six feet high, stout in proportion : not, indeed, 
accurately formed, nor graceful in bearing, but quite as 
much so as a man of six feet high need be. He had a 
manly complexion of brown, yellow, and red. His whisk- 
ers were exceedingly large, black, and well arranged. His 
eyes, as I have before said, were round, large, and hazel ; 
they were also unmeaning. His teeth were good; and his 
nose, neither aquiline nor Grecian, was yet a very showy 
nose upon the whole. All the maid-servants admired him ; 
and you felt, in looking at him, that it was a pity our army 
should lose so good a grenadier. 

Lord Erpingham was a Whig of the old school : he 
thought the Tory boroughs ought to be thrown open. 
He was generally considered a sensible man. He had 
read Blackstone, Montesquieu, Cowper’s Poems, and “ The 
Rambler;” and he was always heard with great attention 
in the House of Lords. In his moral character he was a 
bon vivant, as far as wine is concerned ; for choice eating 
he cared nothing. He was good natured, but close ; brave 
enough to fight a duel, if necessary ; and religious enough 
to go to church once a week — in the country. 

So far Lord Erpingham might seem modeled from one 
of Sir Walter’s heroes : we must reverse the medal, and 
show the points in which he differed from those patterns 
of propriety. 

Like the generality of his class, he was peculiarly loose 
in his notions of women, though not ardent in pursuit of 


GODOLPHIN. 


97 


them. His amours had been among opera-dancers, “ be- 
cause,” as he was wont to say, “there was no d — d bore 
with them” Lord Erpingham was always considered a 
high-minded man. People chose him as an umpire in 
quarrels ; and told a story (which was not true) of his 
having held some state office for a whole year, and in- 
sisted on returning the emoluments. 

Such was Robert Earl of Erpingham. During dinner, 
at which he displayed, to his mother’s great delight, a 
most excellent appetite, he listened, as well as he might, 
considering the more legitimate occupation of the time 
and season, to Lady Erpingham’s recitals of county his- 
tory ; her long answers to his brief inquiries whether old 
friends were dead and young ones married ; and his coun- 
tenance brightened up to an expression of interest — almost 
of intelligence — when he was told that birds were said to 
be plentiful. 

As the servants left the room, and Lord Erpingham 
took his first glass of claret, the conversation fell upon 
Percy Godolphin. 

“ He has been staying with us a whole fortnight,” said 
Lady Erpingham ; “ and, by-the-by, he said he had met 
you in Italy, and mentioned your name as it deserved.” 

“ Indeed 1 And did he really condescend to praise me ?” 
said Lord Erpingham, with eagerness ; for there was that 
about Godolphin, and his reputation for fastidiousness, 
which gave a rarity and a value to his praise, at least to 
lordly ears. “Ah ! he’s a queer fellow : he led a very 
singular life in Italy.” 

9 G 


98 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ So I have always heard,” said LadyErpingham. “But 
of what description ? was he very wild ?” 

“ No, not exactly : there was a good deal of mystery 
about him : he saw very few English, and those were 
chiefly men who played high. He was said to have a 
great deal of learning, and so forth.” 

“Oh! then he was surrounded, I suppose, by those 
medalists and picture- sellers, and other impostors, who 
live upon such of our countrymen as think themselves 
blessed with a taste or afflicted with a genius,” said Lady 
Erpingliam ; who, having lived with the wits and orators 
of the time, had caught mechanically their way of round- 
ing a period. 

“ Far from it !” returned the earl. “ Godolphin is much 
too deep a fellow for that : he’s not easily taken in, I as- 
sure you. I confess I don’t like him the worse for that,” 
added the close noble. “But he lived with the Italian 
doctors and men of science ; and encouraged, in partic- 
ular, one strange fellow who affected sorcery, I fancy, or 
something very like it. Godolphin resided in a very lonely 
spot at Borne : and I believe laboratories, and caldrons, 
and all sorts of devilish things, were always at work there 
— at least, so people said.” 

“And yet,” said Constance, “you thought him too sen- 
sible to be easily taken in ?” 

“Indeed I do, Miss Yernon; and the proof of it is, 
that no man has less fortune or is more made of. He 
plays, it is true, but only occasionally ; though as a player 
at games of skill — piquet, billiards, whist, — he has no 


GODOLPHIN. 


99 


equal, unless it be Saville. But then Saville, entre nous t 
is suspected of playing unfairly.” 

“And you are quite sure,” said the placid Lady Erping- 
ham, “ that Mr. Godolphin is only indebted to skill for his 
success ?” 

Constance darted a glance of fire at the speaker. 

“Why, faith, I believe so! No one ever accused him 
of a single shabby, or even suspicious trick : and indeed, 
as I said before, no one was ever more sought after in 
society, though he shuns it ; and he’s devilish right, for it’s 
a cursed bore !” 

11 My dear Robert ! at your age !” exclaimed the mother. 

“ But,” continued the carl, turning to Constance — “ but, 
Miss Yernon, a man may have his weak point; and the 
cunning Italian may have hit on Godolphin’s, clever as he 
is in general : though, for my part, I will tell you frankly, 
I think he only encouraged him to mystify and perplex 
people, just to get talked of — vanity, in short. He’s a 
good-looking fellow, that Godolphin — eh ?” continued the 
earl, in the tone of a man who meant you to deny what 
he asserted. 

“ Oh, beautiful I” said Lady Erpingham. “ Such a 
countenance !” 

“ Deuced pale, though ! — eh ? — and not the best of 
figures : thin, narrow-shouldered, eh — eh ?” 

Godolphin’s proportions were faultless ; but your strap- 
ping heroes think of a moderate-sized man as mathema- 
ticians define a point— declare that he has no length nor 
Dreadth whatsoever. 


L.of C. 


100 


GODOLPHIN. 


“What say you , Constance?” asked Lady Erpingham, 
meaningly. 

Constance felt the meaning, and replied calmly, that 
Mr. Godolphin appeared to her handsomer than any one 

she had seen lately. 

Lord Erpingham played with his neckcloth, and Lady 
Erpingham rose to leave the room. “ I) d fine ghl! 
said the earl, as he shut the door upon Constance ' “ but 

d d sharp 1” added he, as he resettled himself on his 

chair. 


CHAP TEE XVI I. 

CONSTANCE /.♦ HER TOILET — HER FEELINGS — HER CHARACTER OF 
BEAUTY PEf JRIBED — THE BALL— THE DUCHESS OF WINSTOUN AND 

HER DAUGHTER AN INDUCTION FROM THE NATURE OF FEMALE 

RIVALRIES — JEALOUSY IN A LOVER IMPERTINENCE RETORTED 

LISTENERS 'TEVER HEAR GOOD OF THEMSELVES REMARKS ON 

THE AMUSEMENTS OF A PUBLIC ASSEMBLY THE SUPPER THE 

FALSENESS OF SEEMING GAYETY VARIOUS REFLECTIONS, NEW AND 

TRUE WHAT PASSES BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE. 

It was the evening of the ball to be given in honor of 
Lord Erpingham’s arrival.' Constance, dressed for con- 
quest, sat alone in her dressing-room. Her woman had 
just left her. The lights still burned in profusion about 
the antique chamber (antique, for it was situated in the 
oldest part of the castle); those lights streamed full upon 
the broad brow and exquisite features of Miss Vernon. 
As she leaned back in her chair — the fairy foot upon the 
low Gothic stool, and the hands drooping beside her de- 


GODOLPHIN. 


10 ) 


spondingly — her countenance betrayed much, but not 
serene, thought; and, mixed with that thought, was some- 
thing of irresolution and of great and real sadness. 

It is not, as I have before hinted, to be supposed that 
Constance’s lot had been hitherto a proud one, even though 
she was the most admired beauty of her day ; even though 
she lived with, and received adulation from, the high, and 
noble, and haughty of her land. Often, in the glittering 
crowd that she attracted around her, her ear, sharpened 
by the jealousy and pride of her nature, caught words that 
dashed the cup of pleasure and of vanity with shame and 
anger. “ What ! that the Yernon’s daughter ? Poor girl 1 
dependent entirely on Lady Erpingham ! Ah 1 she’ll take 
in some rich roturier, I hope.” 

Such words from ill-tempered dowagers and faded beau- 
ties were no unfrequent interruption to her brief-lived and 
wearisome triumphs. She heard manoeuvring mothers cau- 
tion their booby sons, whom Constance would have looked 
into the dust had they dared but to touch her hand, against 
her untitled and undowried charms. She saw cautious earls, 
who were all courtesy one night, all coldness another, as 
some report had reached them, accusing their hearts of 
feeling too deeply her attractions, or, as they themselves 
suspected, for the first time, that a heart was not a word 
for a poetical nothing, and that to look on so beautiful 
and glorious a creature was sufficient to convince them, 
even yet, of the possibility of emotion. She had felt to 
the quick the condescending patronage of duchesses and 
chaperons; the oblique hint; the nice and fine distinc- 

9 * 


102 


GODOLPHIN. 


tion which, in polished circles, divides each grade from 
the other, and allows you to be galled without the pleasure 
of feeling justified in offense. 

A.11 this, which, in the flush and heyday of youth, and 
gayety, and loveliness, would have been unnoticed by other 
women, rankled deep in the mind of Constance Yernon. 
The image of her dying father, his complaints, his accusa- 
tions (the justice of which she never for an instant ques- 
tioned), rose up before her in the brightest hours of the 
dance and the revel. She was not one of those women 
whose meek and gentle nature would fly what wounds 
them : Constance had resolved to conquer. Despising 
glitter, and gayety, and show, she burned, she thirsted for 
power — a power which could retaliate the insults she 
fancied she had received, and should turn condescension 
into homage. This object, which every casual word, every 
heedless glance from another, fixed deeper and deeper in 
her heart, took a sort of sanctity from the associations 
with which she linked it — her father’s memory and his 
dying breath. 

At this moment in which we have portrayed her, all 
these restless, and sore, and haughty feelings were busy 
within ; but they were combated, even while the more 
fiercely aroused, by one soft and tender thought — the 
image of Godolphin — of Godolphin, the spendthrift heir 
of a broken fortune and a fallen house. She felt too 
deeply that she loved him; and, ignorant of his worldlier 
qualities, imagined that he loved her with all the devotion 
of that romance, and the ardor of that genius, which ap- 


G0D0LPII1N. 


103 


peared to her to compose his character. But this per- 
suasion gave her now no delightful emotion. Convinced 
that she ought to reject him, his image only colored with 
sadness those objects and that ambition which she had 
hitherto regarded with an exulting pride. She was not 
the less bent on ihe lofty ends of her destiny ; but the 
glory and the illusion had fallen from them. She had 
taken an insight into futurity, and felt that to enjoy 
power was to lose happiness. Yet, with this full convic- 
tion, she forsook the happiness and clung to the power. 
Alas I for our best and wisest theories, our problems, 
our systems, our philosophy ! Human beings will never 
cease to mistake the means for the end ; and, despite the 
dogmas of sages, our conduct does not depend on our 
conviction. 

Carriage after carriage had rolled beneath the windows 
of the room where Constance sat, and still she moved not; 
until, at length, a certain composure, as if the result of 
some determination, stole over her features. The brilliant 
and transparent hues returned to her cheek, and, as she 
rose and stood erect, with a certain calmness and energy 
on her lip and forehead, perhaps her beauty had never 
seemed of so lofty and august a cast. In passing through 
the chamber, she stopped for a moment opposite the mirror 
that reflected her stately shape in its full height. Beauty 
is so truly the weapon of woman, that it is as impossible 
for her, even in grief, wholly to forget its effect, as it is for 
the dying warrior to look with indifference on the sword 
rUh which he has won his trophies or his fame. Nor was 


104 


GODOLPHIN. 


Constance that evening disposed to be indifferent to the 
effect she should produce. She looked on the reflection 
of herself with a feeling of triumph, not arising from vanity 
alone. 

And when did mirror ever give back a form more worthy 
of a Pericles to worship, or an Apelles to paint ? Though 
but little removed from the common height, the impression 
Constance always gave was that of a person much taller 
than she really was. A certain majesty in the turn of- the 
head, the fall of the shoulders, the breadth of the brow, 
and the exceeding calmness of the features, invested her 
with an air which I have never seen equaled by any one, 
but which, had Pasta been a beauty, she might have pos- 
sessed. But there was nothing hard or harsh in this 
majesty. Whatsoever of a masculine nature Constance 
might have inherited, nothing masculine, nothing not ex- 
quisitely feminine, was visible in her person. Her shape 
was rounded, and sufficiently full .to show, that in middle 
age its beauty would be preserved by that richness and 
freshness which a moderate increase of the proportions 
always gives to the sex. Her arms and hands were, and 
are, even to this day, of a beauty the more striking because 
it is so rare. Nothing in any European country is more 
uncommon than an arm really beautiful both in hue and 
shape. In any assembly we go to, what miserable bones, 
what angular elbows, what red skins, do we see under the 
cover of those capacious sleeves, which are only one whit 
less ugly. At the time I speak of, those coverings were 
not worn ; and the white, round, dazzling arm of Con- 


GODOLPIIIN. 


105 


stance, bare almost to the shoulder, was girded by dazzling 
gems, which at once set off, and were foiled by, the beauty 
of nature. Her hair was of the most luxuriant, and of the 
deepest, black ; and it was worn in a fashion — then un- 
common, without being bizarre — now hackneyed by the 
plainest faces, though suiting only the highest order of 
beauty ; — I mean that simple and classic fashion to which 
the French have given a name borrowed from Calypso, 
but which appears to me suited rather to an intellectual 
than a voluptuous goddess. Her long lashes, and a brow 
delicately but darkly penciled, gave additional eloquence 
to an eye of the deepest blue, and a classic contour to a 
profile so slightly aquiline that it was commonly considered 
Grecian. That necessary completion to all real beauty of 
either sex, the short and curved upper lip, terminated in 
the dazzling teeth, and the ripe and dewy under lip, added 
to what was noble in her beauty that charm also which is 
exclusively feminine. Her complexion was capricious; 
now pale, now tinged with the pink of the sea-shell, or the 
softest shade of the rose-leaf : but in either it was so trans- 
parent, that you doubted which became her the most. To 
these attractions, add a throat, a bust of the most dazzling 
whiteness, and the justest proportions ; a foot, whose least 
beauty was its smallness ; and a waist narrow — not the 
narrowness of tenuity or constraint ; — but round, gradual, 
insensibly less in its compression: — and the person of 
Constance Yernon, in the bloom of her youth, is before 
you. 

She passed with her quiet and stately step from her 
8 * 


106 


GODOLPHIN. 


room, through one adjoining it, and which we stop to 
notice, because it was her customary sitting-room when 
not with Lady Erpingham. There had Godolphin, with 
the foreign but courtly freedom, the respectful and chivalric 
ease of his manners, often sought her ; there had he lin- 
gered in order to detain her yet a moment and a moment 
longer from other company, seeking a sweet excuse in 
some remark on the books that strewed the tables, or the 
music in that recess, or the forest scene from those win- 
dows through which the moon of autumn now stole with 
its own peculiar power to soften and subdue. As these 
recollections came across her, her step faltered and her 
color faded from its glow : she paused a moment, cast a 
mournful glance round the room, and then tore herself 
away, descended the lofty staircase, passed the stone hall 
melancholy with old banners and rusted crests, and bore 
her beauty and her busy heart into the thickening and 
gay crowd. 

Her eye looked once more round for the graceful form 
of Godolphin : but he was not visible ; and she had scarcely 
satisfied herself of this before Lord Erpingham, the hero 
of the evening, approached and claimed her hand. 

“I have just performed my duty,” said he, with a gal- 
lantry of speech not common to him, “ now for my reward. 
I have danced the first dance with Lady Margaret Midge- 
combe : I come, according to your promise, to dance the 
second with you.” 

There was something in these words that stung one of 
the morbid remembrances in Miss Vernon's mind. Lady 


GODOLPHIN. 


107 


Margaret Midgecombe, in ordinary life, would have been 
thought a good-looking, vulgar girl : — she was a duke’s 
daughter, and she was termed a Hebe. Her little nose, 
and her fresh color, and her silly but not unmalicious 
laugh, were called enchanting ; and all irregularities of 
feature,- and faults of shape, were absolutely turned into 
merits by that odd commendation, so common with us — 
“A deuced fine girl ; none of your regular beauties.” 

Not only in the county of * * * shire, but in London, 
had Lady Margaret Midgecombe been set up as the rival 
beauty of Constance Yernon. And Constauce, far too 
lovely, too cold, too proud, not to acknowledge beauty in 
others where it really existed, was nevertheless unaffect- 
edly indignant at a comparison so unworthy : she even, 
at times, despised her own claims to admiration, since 
claims so immeasurably inferior could be put into compe- 
tition with them. Added to this sore feeling for Lady 
Margaret, was one created by Lady Margaret’s mother. — 
The Duchess of Winstoun was a woman of ordinary birth 

the daughter of a peer of great wealth but new family. 

She had married, however, one of the most powerful dukes 
in the peerage ; — a stupid, heavy, pompous man, with four 
castles, eight parks, a coal-mine, a tin-mine, six boroughs, 
and about thirty livings. Inactive and reserved, the duke 
was seldom seen in public: the care of supporting his 
rank devolved on the duchess ; and she supported it with 
as much solemnity of purpose as if she had been a cheese- 
monger’s daughter. Stately, insolent, and coarse ; — asked 
everywhere ; insulting all ; hated and courted, — such was 


108 


GODOLPIIIN. 


the Duchess of Winstoun, and such, perhaps, have been 
other duchesses before her. 

Be it understood that, at that day, Fashion had not 
risen to the despotism it now enjoys : it took its coloring 
from Power, not controlled it. I shall show, indeed, how 
much of its present condition that Fashion owes to the 
Heroine of these Memoirs. The Duchess of Winstoun 
could not now be that great person she was then : there is 
a certain good taste in Fashion which repels the mere 
insolence of Rank — which requires persons to be either 
agreeable or brilliant, or at least original — which weighs 
stupid dukes in a righteous balance, and finds vulgar 
duchesses wanting. But in lack of this new authority — 
this moral sebastocrator between the Sovereign and the 
dignity hitherto considered next to the Sovereign’s — her 
Grace of Winstoun exercised with impunity the rights of 
insolence. She had taken an especial dislike to Con- 
stance: partly because the few good judges of beauty, 
who care neither for rank nor report, had very unre- 
servedly placed Miss Vernon beyond the reach of all com- 
petition with her daughter ; and principally, because the 
high spirit and keen irony of Constance had given more 
than once to the duchess’s effrontery so cutting and so 
public a check, that she had felt with astonishment and 
rage there was one woman in that world — that woman too 
unmarried — who could retort the rudeness of the Duchess 
of Winstoun. Spiteful, however, and numerous were the 
things she said of Miss Vernon, when Miss Vernon was 
absent; and haughty beyond measure were the inclination 


UODOLTHlff. 


100 


of her head and the tone of her voice when Miss Yernon 
was present. If, therefore, Constance was disliked by the 
duchess, we may readily believe that she returned the dis- 
like. The very name roused her spleen and her pride ; 
and it was with a feeling all a woman’s, though scarcely 
feminine in the amiable sense of the word, that she learned 
to whom the honor of Lord Erpingham’s precedence had 
been (though necessarily) given. 

As Lord Erpingham led her to her place, a buzz of ad- 
miration and enthusiasm followed her steps. This pleased 
Erpingham more than, at that moment, it did Constance. 
Already intoxicated by her beauty, he was proud of the 
effect it produced on others, for that effect was a compli- 
ment to his taste. He exerted himself to be agreeable ; 
nay, more, to be fascinating : he affected a low voice ; and 
he attempted — poor man 1 — to flatter. 

The Duchess of Winstoun and her daughter sat behind 
on an elevated bench. They saw with especial advantage 
the attentions with which one of the greatest of England’s 
earls honored the daughter of one of the greatest of Eng- 
land’s orators. They were shocked at his want of dignity. 
Constance perceived their chagrin, and she leant a more 
pleased and attentive notice to Lord Erpingham’s com- 
pliments: her eyes sparkled and her cheek blushed : and 
the good folks around, admiring Lord Erpingham’s im- 
mense whiskers, thought Constance in love. 

It was just at this time that Percy Godolphin entered 
the room. 

Although Godolphin’s person was not of a showy order, 
10 


110 


GODOLPHIN. 


there was something about him that always arrested at- 
tention. His air ; his carriage ; his long fair locks ; his 
rich and foreign habit of dress, which his high bearing 
and intellectual countenance redeemed from coxcombry; 
all, united, gave something remarkable and distinguished 
to his appearance; and the interest attached to his for- 
tunes, and to his social reputation for genius and eccen- 
tricity, could not fail of increasing the effect he produced 
when his name was known. 

From the throng of idlers that gathered around him ; 
from the bows of the great and the smiles of the fair; 
Godolphin, however, directed his whole notice — his whole 
soul — to the spot which was hallowed by Constance Ver- 
non. He saw her engaged with a man rich, powerful, and 
handsome. He saw that she listened to her partner with 
evident interest— ^-th at he addressed her with evident ad- 
miration. His heart sank within him ; he felt faint and 
sick; then came anger — mortification; then agony and 
despair. All his former resolutions — all his prudence, his 
worldliness, his caution — -vanished at once; he felt only 
that he loved, that he was supplanted, that he was undone. 
The dark and fierce passions of his youth, of a nature in 
reality wild and vehement, swept away at once the projects 
and the fabrics of that shallow and chill philosophy he 
had borrowed from the world and deemed the wisdom of 
the closet. A cottage and a desert with Constance — 
Constance all his — heart and hand — would have been 
Paradise : he would have nursed no other ambition, nor 
dreamed of a reward beyond. Such effect has jealousy 


GODOLPHIN. 


Ill 


upon ns. We confide, and we hesitate to accept a boon: 
we are jealous, and we would lay down life to attain it. 

“ V hat a handsome fellow Erpingham is 1” said a young 
man in a cavalry regiment. 

Godolphin heard, and groaned audibly. 

“And what a devilish handsome girl he is dancing 
with !” said another young man, from Oxford. 

“Oh, Miss Vernon ! — By Jove, Erpingham seems smit- 
ten. What a capital thing it would be for her!” 

“And for him, too !” cried the more chivalrous Oxonian 

“Humph 1” said the officer. 

“I heard,” renewed the Oxonian, “that she was to be 
married to young Godolphin. He was staying here a 
short time ago. They rode and walked together. What 
a lucky fellow he has been ! I don’t know any one I should 
so much like to see.” 

“ Hush J” said a third person, looking at Godolphin. 

Percy moved on. Accomplished and self-collected as 
he usually was, he could not wholly conceal the hell within. 
His brow grew knit and gloomy : he scarcely returned the 
salutations he received ; and moving out of the crowd, he 
stole to a seat behind a large pillar, and, scarcely seen by 
any one, fixed his eyes on the form and movements of Miss 
Vernon. 

It so happened that he had placed himself in the vicinity 
of the Duchess of Winstoun, and within hearing of the 
conversation that I am about to record. 

The dance being over, Lord Erpingham led Constance 
to a seat close by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. The 


112 


GODOLPHIN. 


duchess had formed her plan of attack ; and, rising as she 
saw Constance within reach , approached her with an air 
that affected civility. 

“How do you do, Miss Vernon? I am happy to see 
you looking so well. What truth in the report, eh ?” And 
the duchess showed her teeth — videlicet, smiled. 

“ What report does your grace allude to ?” 

“ Nay, nay ; I am sure Lord Erpingham has heard it as 
well as myself; and I wish for your sake (a slight empha- 
sis), indeed, for both your sakes, that it may be true.” 

“To wait till the Duchess of Winstoun speaks intelli- 
gibly would be a waste of her time and my own,” said the 
haughty Constance, with the rudeness in which she then 
delighted, and for which she has since become known. 
But the duchess was not to be offended until she had com- 
pleted her manoeuvre. 

“Well, now,” said she, turning to Lord Erpingham, “I 
appeal to you : is not Miss Vernon to be married very 
soon to Mr. Godolphin ? I am sure (with an affected good 
nature and compassion that stung Constance to the quick), 
I am sure I hope so.” 

“Upon my word you amaze me,” said Lord Erpingham, 
opening to their fullest extent the large, round, hazel eyes, 
for which he was so justly celebrated. “ I never heard 
this before.” 

“Oh 1 a secret as yet ?” said the duchess : “very well ! 
T can keep a secret.” 

Lady Margaret looked down, and laughed prettily. 

“I thought, till now,” said Constance, with grave com- 


GODOLPHIN. 


ir 


posure, “that no person could be more contemptible than 
one who collects idle reports : I now find I was wrong : a 
person infinitely more contemptible is one who invents 
them.” 

The rude duchess, beat at her own weapons, blushed 
with anger even through her rouge : but Constance turned 
away, and, still leaning on Lord Erpingham’s arm, sought 
another seat ; — that seat, on the opposite side of the pillar 
behind which Godolphin sat, was still within his hearing. 

“Upon my word, Miss Vernon,” said Erpingham, “I 
admire your spirit. Nothing like setting down those ab- 
surd people who try to tease one, and think one dares not 
retort. But pray— I hope I’m not impertinent— pray may 
I ask if this rumor have any truth in it?” 

“ Certainly not,” said Constance, with a great effort, but . 
io a clear tone. 

“No: I should have thought not — I should have 
thought not. Godolphin’s much too poor, — much too 
p<X>r for you. Miss Vernon is not born to marry for love 
in a cottage, — is she ?” 

Constance sighed. 

That soft, low tone thrilled to Godolphin’s very heart. 
He bent forward : he held his breath : he thirsted for her 
voice ; for some tone, some word in answer ; it came not 
at that moment. 

“You remember,” renewed the earl, — “you remember 

Mi ss l ? no : she was before your time. Well I she 

married S , much such another fellow as Godolphin. 

He had not a shilling : but he lived well : had a house in 
10* H 


114 


GODOLTHIN. 


Mayfair ; gave dinners ; hunted at Melton, and so forth .* 
in short, he played high. She had about ten thousand 
pounds. They married, and lived for two years so com- 
fortably, you have no idea. Every one envied them. 
They did not keep a close carriage, but he used to drive 
her out to dinners in his French cabriolet.* There was 
no show — no pomp : everything deuced neat, though ; 
quite love in a cottage — only the cottage was in Curzon 

Street. At length, however, the cards turned; S lost 

everything : owed more than he could ever pay : we were 

forced to cut him ; and his relation, Lord , coming 

isto the ministry a year afterward, got him a place in the 
Customs. They live at Brompton : he wears, a pepper- 
and-salt coat, and she a mob-cap with pink ribbons : they 
have five hundred a year, and ten children. Such was the 

fate of S ’s wife ; such may be the fate of Godolphin’s. 

Oh, Miss Yernon could not marry him !” 

“You are right, Lord Erpingham,” said Constance with 
emphasis ; “ but you take too much license in expressing 
your opinion.” 

Before Lord Erpingham could stammer forth his apol- 
ogy, they heard a slight noise behind : they turned, Go- 
dolphin had risen. His countenance, always inclined to a 
calm severity — for thought is usually severe in its outward 
aspect— bent now on both the speakers with so dark and 
menacing an aspect, that the stout earl felt his heart stand 
still for a moment; and Constance was appalled as if it 


* Then uncommon. 


GODOLPIIIN. 


113 


had been the apparition, and not the living form of her 
lover that she beheld. But scarcely had they seen this 
expression of countenance, ere it changed. With a cold 
and polished smile, a relaxed brow, and profound inclina- 
tion of his form, Godolphin greeted the two : and, pass- 
ing from his seat with a slow step, glided among the crowd 
and vanished. 

What a strange thing, after all, is a great assembly ! 
An immense m6b of persons, who feel for each other the 
profoundest indifference — met together to join in amuse- 
ments which the large majority of them consider weari- 
some beyond conception. How unintellectual, how unciv- 
ilized, such a scene, and such actors I What a remnant of 
barbarous times, when people danced because they had 
nothing to say ! Were there nothing ridiculous in danc- 
ing, there would be nothing ridiculous in seeing wise men 
dance. But that sight would be ludicrous, because of the 
disparity between the mind and the occupation. However, 
we have some excuse ; we go to these assemblies to sell 
our daughters, or flirt with our neighbors’ wives. A ball- 
room is nothing more or less than a great market-place of 
beauty. For my part, were I a buyer, I should like making 
my purchases in a less public mart. 

“ Come, Godolphin, a glass of champagne,” cried the 
young Lord Belvoir, as they sat near each other at the 
splendid supper. • 

“With all my heart; but not from that bottle! We 
must have a new one ; for this glass is pledged to Lady 
Delmour, and I would not drink to her health but from 


116 


GODOLPHIN. 


the first sparkle ! Nothing tame, nothing insipid, nothing 
that has lost its first freshness, can be dedicated to one so 
beautiful and young.” 

The fresh bottle was opened, and Godolphin bowed over 
his glass to Lord Belvoir’s sister— a Beauty and a Blue. 
Lady Delmour admired Godolphin, and she was flattered 
by a compliment that no one wholly educated in England 
would have had the gallant courage to utter across a 
crowded table. 

“ You have been dancing?” said she. 

“No!” 

“ What then ?” 

“ What then ?” said Godolphin ; “ ah, Lady Delmour, 
do not ask.” — The look that accompanied the words, sup- 
plied them with a meaning. “Need I add,” said he, in a 
lower voice, “ that I have been thinking of the most beau- 
tiful person present ?” 

“Pooh 1” said Lady Delmour, turning away her head. 

Now, that pooh is a very significant word. On the lips 
of a man of business, it denotes contempt for romance ; ou 
the lips of a politician, it rebukes a theory. With that 
monosyllable, a philosopher massacres a fallacy : by those 
four letters, a rich man gets rid of a beggar. But in the 
rosy mouth of a woman, the harshness vanishes, the disdain 
becomes encouragement. “Pooh 1” says the lady when you 
tell her she is handsome ; but she smiles' when she says it. 
With the same reply she receives your protestation of love, 
and blushes as she receives. With men it is the sternest, 
with woman the softest, exclamation in the language. 


GODOLPHIN. 


m 


“Pooh!” said Lady Delmour, turning away her head: 
—and Godolphin was in singular spirits. What a strange 
thing that we should call such hilarity from our gloom 1 
The stroke induces the flash ; excite the nerves by jealousy, 
by despair, and with the proud, you only trace the excite- 
ment by the mad mirth and hysterical laughter it creates. 

Godolphin was charming comme un amour, and the 
young countess was delighted with his gallantry. 

“ Did you ever love ?” asked she, tenderly, as they sat 
alone after supper. 

“Alas, yes !” said he. 

“ How often ?” 

“Read Marmontel’s story of the ‘Four Phials I have 
no other answer.” 

Oh, what a beautiful tale that is ! The whole history of 
a man’s heart is contained in it ! 

While Godolphin was thus talking with Lady Delmour, 
his whole soul was with Constance; of her only he thought, 
and on her he thirsted for revenge. There is a curious 
phenomenon in love, showing how much vanity has to do 
with even the best species of it ; when, for your mistress 
to prefer another, changes all your affection into hatred : — 
is it the loss of the mistress, or her preference to the 
other ? The last, to be sure : for if the former, you would 
only grieve — but jealousy does not make you grieve, it 
makes you enraged ; it does not sadden, it stings. After 
all, as we grow old, and look back on the “ master pas- 
sion,” how we smile at the fools it made of us— at the im- 
portance we attach to it — at the millions that have been 


118 


GODOLPHIN. 


governed by it! When we examine the passion of love, 
it is like examining the character of some great man ; we 
are astonished to perceive the littlenesses that belong to 
it. We ask in wonder, “How come such effects from such 
a cause 

Godolphin continued talking sentiment with Lady Del- 
mour, until her lord, who was very fond of his carriage- 
horses, came up and took her away ; and then, perhaps, 
glad to be relieved, Percy sauntered into the ball-room, 
where, though the crowd was somewhat thinned, the dance 
was continued with that spirit which always seems to in- 
crease as the night advances. 

For my own part, I now and then look late in at a ball 
as a warning and grave memento of the flight of time. 
Ho amusement belongs of right so essentially to the young, 
in their first youth,— to the unthinking, the intoxicated, 
—to those whose blood is an elixir. 

“ Constance be woman,” said Godolphin to himself, 
as he returned to the ball-room, “ I will yet humble her to 
my will. I have not learned the science so long, to be 
now foiled in the first moment I have seriously wished to 
triumph. ” 

As this tnought inspired and excited him, he moved 
along at some distance from, but carefully within the sight 
of Constance. He paused by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. 
He addressed her. Notwithstanding the insolence and the 
ignorance of the Duchess of Winstoun, he was well re- 
ceived by both mother and daughter. Some persons there 
are, in all times and in all spheres, who command a certain 


GODOLPHIN. 


119 


respect, bought neither by riches, rank, nor even scrupu- 
lous morality of conduct. They win it by the reputation 
that talent alone can win them, and which yet is not al- 
ways the reputation of talent. No man, even in the frivo- 
lous societies of the great, obtains homage without certain 
qualities, which, had they been happily directed, would 
have conducted him to fame. Had the attention of a 

Grammont, or of a , been early turned toward what 

ought to be the objects desired, who can doubt that, in- 
stead of the heroes of a circle, they might have been worthy 
of becoming names of posterity? 

Thus, the genius of Godolphin had drawn around him 
an eclat which made even the haughtiest willing to receive 
and to repay his notice ; and Lady Margaret actually 
blushed with pleasure when he asked her to dance. A 
foreign dance, then only very partially known in England, 
had been called for : few were acquainted with it, — those 
only who had been abroad ; and as the movements seemed 
to require peculiar grace of person, some even among 
those few declined, through modesty, the exhibition. 

To this dance Godolphin led Lady Margaret. All 
crowded round to see the performers ; and as each went 
through the giddy and intoxicating maze, they made re- 
marks on the awkwardness, or the singularity, or the im- 
propriety of the dance. But when Godolphin began, the 
murmurs changed. The slow and stately measure then 
adapted to the steps, was one in which the graceful sym 
metry of his person might eminently display itself. Lady 
Margaret was at least as well acquainted with the dance ; 


X20 


GODOLPIIIN. 


and the couple altogether so immeasurably excelled all 
competitors, that the rest, as if sensible of it, stopped one 
after the other; and when Godolphin, perceiving that they 
were alone, stopped also, the spectators made their ap- 
probation more audible than approbation usually is in 
polished society. 

As Godolphin paused, his eyes met those of Constance. 
There was not there the expression he had anticipated : 
there was neither the anger of jealousy, nor the restless- 
ness of offended vanity, nor the desire of conciliation, visi- 
ble in those large and speaking orbs. A deep, a penetra- 
ting, a sad inquiry seemed to dwell in her gaze,— seemed 
anxious to pierce into his heart, and to discover whether 
there she possessed the power to wound, or whether each 
had been deceived : so at least seemed that fixed and mel- 
ancholy intenseness of look to Godolphin. He left Lady 
Margaret abruptly : in an instant he was by the side of 
Constance. 

“ You must be delighted with this evening,” said he, bit- 
terly : “ wherever I go I hear your praise: every one 
admires you; and he who does not admire so much as 

worship you, he alone is beneath your notice. He born 

to such shattered fortunes — he indeed might never aspire 
to that which titled and wealthy idiots deem they may 
command , — the hand of Constance Yernon.” 

It was with a low and calm tone that Godolphin spoke. 
Constance turned deadly pale : her frame trembled ; but 
she did not answer immediately. She moved to a seat 
retired a little from the busy crowd : Godolphin followed, 


UODOLPHIN. 


121 


and sat himself beside her ; and then, with a slight effort, 
Constance spoke. 

“ You heard what was said, Mr. Godolphin, and I grieve 
to think you did. If I offended you, however, forgive me, 

I pr*y you ; I pray it sincerely — warmly. God knows I 
have suffered myself enough from idle words, and from the 
slighting opinion with which this hard world visits the 
poor, not to feel deep regret and shame if I wound, by 
like means, another, more especially” — Constance’s voice 
trembled — “more especially you /” 

As she spoke, she turned her eyes on Godolphin, and 
they were full of tears. The tenderness of her voice, her 
look, melted him at once. Was it to him, indeed, that the 
haughty Constance addressed the words of kindness and 

apology? to him, whose extrinsic circumstances she had 

heard described as so unworthy of her, and, his reason 
told him, with such justice? 

“ Oh, Miss Yernon 1” said he, passionately ; “ Miss Yer- 

jion Constance — dear, dear Constance 1 dare I call you 

so ? hear me one word. I love you with a love which leaves 
me no words to tell it. I know my faults, my poverty, 
my unworthiness : but — but — may I — may 1 hope ?” 

And all the woman was in Constance’s cheek, as she 
listened. That cheek, how richly was it dyed 1 Her eyes 
drooped ; her bosom heaved. How every word in those 
broken sentences sank into her heart I never was a tone 
forgotten. The child may forget its mother, and the 
mother desert the child : but never, never from a woman’s 
heart departs the memory of the first confession of love 
11 


122 


GODOLPHIN. 


from him wnom she first loves! She lifted her eyes, and 
again withdrew them, and again gazed. 

“ This must not be,” at last she said ; “ no, no ! it is 
folly, madness in both 1” 

“ Not so ; nay, not so 1” whispered Godolphin, in the 
softest notes of a voice that could never be harsh. “ It 
may seem folly — madness if you will, that the brilliant and 
all-idolized Miss Yernon should listen to the vows of so 
lowly an adorer: but try me — prove me, and own — yes, 
you will own, some years hence, that that folly has been 
happy beyond the happiness of prudence or ambition.” 

“ This,” answered Constance, struggling with her emo- 
tions, — “ this is no spot or hour for such a conference. Let 
us meet to-morrow — the western chamber.” 

“And the hour ?” 

" Twelve !” 

“And I may hope — till then?” 

Constance again grew pale ; and in a voice that, though 
it scarcely left her lips, struck coldness and dismay into hia 
sudden and delighted confidence, answered : 

“ No, Percy, there is no hope ! — none 1” 


GODOLPHIN 


123 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE INTERVIEW — THE CRISIS OF A LIFE. 

The western chamber was that I have mentioned as the 
one in which Constance usually fixed her retreat, when 
neither sociability nor state summoned her to the more 
public apartments. I should have said that Godolphin 
slept in the house ; for, coming from a distance, and 
through country roads, Lady Erpingham had proffered 
him that hospitality, and he had willingly accepted it. 
Before the appointed hour, he was at the appointed spot. 

He had passed the hours till then without even seeking 
his pillow. In restless strides across his chamber, he had 
revolved those words with which Constance had seemed to 
deny the hopes she herself had created. All private and 
more selfish schemes, or reflections, had vanished, as by 
magic, from the mind of a man prematurely formed, but 
not yet wholly hardened, in the mould of worldly specula- 
tion. He thought no more of what he should relinquish 
in obtaining her hand : with the ardor of boyish and real 
love, he thought only of her. It was as if there existed 
no world but the little spot in which she breathed and 
moved. Poverty, privation, toil, the change of the man- 
ners and habits of his whole previous life, to those of pro- 
fessional enterprise and self-denial ; — to all this he looked 
forward not so much with calmness as with triumph. 


124 


GODOLPHIN. 


“Be but Constance mine!” said he again and again; 
and again and again those fatal words knocked at his 
heart, “ No hope — none !” and he gnashed his teeth in 
very anguish, and muttered, “ But mine she will not— she 
will never be !” 

Still, however, before the hour of noon, something of his 
habitual confidence returned to him. He had succeeded, 
though but partially, in reasoning away the obvious mean- 
ing of the words ; and he ascended to the chamber from 
the gardens, in which he had sought, by the air, to cool 
his mental fever, with a sentiment, ominous and doubtful 
indeed, but still removed from despondency and despair. 

The day was sad and heavy. A low, drizzling rain, and 
laboring yet settled clouds, which denied all glimpse of the 
sky, and seemed cursed into stagnancy by the absence of 
all wind or even breeze, increased by those associations we 
endeavor in vain to resist, the dark and oppressive sadness 
of his thoughts. 

He paused as he laid his hand on the door of the cham- 
ber : he listened ; and in the acute and painful life which 
seemed breathed into all his senses, he felt as if he could 
have heard — though without the room— the very breath 
of Constance ; or known, as by an inspiration, the presence 
of her beauty. He opened the door gently : all was silence 
and desolation for him — Constance was not there ! 

He felt, however, as if that absence was a relief. He 
breathed more freely, and seemed to himself more pre- 
pared for the meeting. He took his station by the recess 
of the window: in vain — he could rest in no spot: he 


GODOLPHIN. 


125 


Walked to and fro, pausing only for a moment as some 
object before him reminded him of past and more tranquil 
hours. The books he had admired, and which, at his de- 
parture, had been left in their usual receptacle at another 
part of the house, he now discovered on the tables: they 
opened of themselves at the passages he had read aloud 
to Constance: those passages, in his presence, she had not 
seemed to admire: he was inexpressively touched to per- 
ceive that, in his absence, they had become dear to her. 
As he turned with a beating heart from this silent proof 
of affection, he was startled by the sudden and almost 
living resemblance to Constance, which struck upon him 
in a full-length picture opposite — the picture of her father. 
That picture, by one of the best of our great modern mas- 
ters- of the art, had been taken of Yernon in the proudest 
epoch of his prosperity and fame. He was portrayed in 
the attitude in which he had uttered one of the most strik- 
ing sentences of one of his most brilliant orations : the 
hand was raised, the foot advanced, the chest expanded. 
Life, energy, command, flashed from the dark eye, breathed 
from the dilated nostril, broke from the inspired lip. That 
noble brow — those modeled features — that air so full of 
the royalty of genius — how startlingly did they resemble 
the softer lineaments of Constance ! 

Arrested, in spite of himself, by the skill of the limner, 
and the characteristics of the portrait, Godolphin stood 
motionless and gazing, till the door opened, and Con- 
stance herself stood before him. She smiled faintly, but 
with sweetness, as she approached; and, seating herself, 
11 * 


126 


GODOLPHIN. 


motioned him to a chair at a little distance. He obeyed 
the gesture in silence. 

“Godolphin 1” said she, softly. At the sound of her 
voice he raised his eyes from the ground, and fixed them 
on her countenance with a look so full of an imploring 
and earnest meaning, so expressive of the passion, the 
suspense of his heart, that Constance felt her voice cease 
at once. But he saw as he gazed how powerful had been 
his influence. Not a vestige of bloom was on her cheek : 
her very lips were colorless : her eyes were swollen with 
weeping; and though she seemed very calm and self-pos- 
sessed, all her wonted majesty of mien was gone ! The 
form seemed to shrink within itself. Humbleness and sor- 
row — deep, passionate, but quiet sorrow — had supplanted 
the haughtiness and the elastic freshness of her beauty. 
“ Mr. Godolphin,” she repeated, after a pause, “ answer 
me truly and with candor : not with the world’s gallantry ; 

but with a sincere, a plain avowal. Were you not in 

your unguarded expressions last night — were you not ex- 
cited by the surprise, the passion, of the moment ? Were 
you not uttering what, had you been actuated only by a 
calm and premeditated prudence, you would at least have 
suppressed ?” 

“Miss Vernon,” replied Godolphin, “all that I said last 
night, I now, in calmness and with deliberate premedita- 
tion, repeat — all that I can dream of happiness is in your 
hands.” 

“I would, indeed, that I could disbelieve you,” said 
Constance, sorrowfully; “I have considered deeply on 


GODOLPIIIN. 


127 


your words. I am touched — made grateful — proud — yes, 
truly proud — by your confessed affection — but ” 

“Oh, Constance 1” cried Godolphin, in a sudden and 
agonized voice — and rising, he flung himself impetuously 
at her feet — “Constance ! do not reject me !” 

He seized her hand : it struggled not with his. He 
gazed on her countenance : it was dyed in blushes ; aud 
before those blushes vanished, her agitation found relief in 
tears, which flowed fast and full. 

“ Beloved 1” said Godolphin, with a solemn tenderness, 
“why struggle with your heart? That heart I read at 
this moment: that is not averse to me.” Constance wept 
on. “ I know what you would say, and what you feel,” 
continued Godolphin : “ you think that I — that we both 
are poor: that you could ill bear the humiliations of that 
haughty poverty which those born to higher fortunes so 
irksomely endure. You tremble to link your fate with one 
who has been imprudent — lavish— selfish, if you will. You 
recoil before you intrust your happiness to a man who, if 
he wreck that , can offer you nothing in return : no rank- 
no station — nothing to heal a bruised heart, or cover its 
wound, at least, in^he rich disguises of power and wealth. 
Am I not right, Constance ? Do I not read your mind ?” 

“No!” said Constance, with energy. “Had I been 
born any man’s daughter, but his from whom I take my 
name ; were I the same in all things, mind and heart, save 
in one feeling, one remembrance, one object — that I am 
now ; Heaven is my witness that I would not cast a 
thought upon poverty — upon privation : that I would — 


123 


GODOLPHIN. 


nay, I do — I do confide in your vows, your affection. If 
you have erred, I know it not. If any but you tell me 
you have erred, I believe them not. You I trust wholly 
and implicitly. Heaven, I say, is ray witness that, did I 
obey the voice of my selfish heart, I would gladly, proudly, 
share and follow your fortunes. You mistake me if you 
think sordid and vulgar ambition can only influence me. 
No I I could be worthy of you 1 The daughter of John 
Vernon oould be a worthy wife to the man of indigence 
and genius. In your poverty I could soothe you ; in your 
labors I could support you ; in your reverses console, in 
your prosperity triumph. But— but, it must not be. Go, 
Godolphin— dear Godolphin 1 There are thousands better 
and fairer than I am, who will do for you as I would have 
done ; but who possess the power I have not — who, in* 

stead of sharing, can raise your fortunes. Go ! and if it 

comfort, if it soothe you, believe that I have not been 
insensible to your generosity, your love. My best wishes, 
my fondest prayers, my dearest hopes, are yours.” 

Blinded by her tears, subdued by her emotions, Con- 
stance was still herself. She rose; she extricated her 
hand from Godolphin’s ; she turned to leave the room. 
But Godolphin, still kneeling, caught hold of her robe, 
and gently but effectually detained her. 

“ The picture you have painted,” said he, “do not de- 
stroy at once. You have portrayed yourself my soother, 
guide, restorer. You can, indeed you can, be this. You 
do not know me, Constance. Let me say one word for 
myself. Hitherto, I have shunned fame and avoided am- 


GODOLPIIIN 


129 


bition. Life has seemed to me so short, and all that even 
glory wins so poor, that I have thought no labor worth 
the price of a single hour of pleasure and enjoyment. For 
you, how joyfully will I renounce my code 1 For myself, 

I could ask no honor : for you, I will labor for all. No 
toil shall be dry to me — no pleasure shall decoy. I will 
/inounce my idle and desultory pursuits. I will enter the 
great public arena, where all who come armed with patience 
and with energy are sure to win. Constance, I am not 
without talents, though they have slept within me; say 
but the word, and you know not what they can produce.” 

An irresolution in Constance was felt as a sympathy by 
Godolphin ; he continued : 

“ We are both desolate in the world, Constance ; we are 
orphans— friendless, fortuneless. Yet both have made our 
way without friends, and commanded our associates, though 
without fortune. Does not this declare we have that within 
us which, when we are united, can still exalt or conquer our 
destiny? And we — we — alone in the noisy and conten- 
tious world with which we strive — we shall turn, after each 
effort, to our own hearts, and find there a comfort and a 
shelter. All things will bind us closer and closer to each 
other. The thought of our past solitude, the hope of our 
future objects, will only feed the fountain of our present 
love. And how much sweeter, Constance, will be honors 
to you, if we thus win them; sanctified as they will be, by 
the sacrifices we have made; by the thought of the many 
hours in which we desponded, yet took consolation from 
each other ; by the thought how we sweetened mortifica^ 

ii* i 


130 


GODOLPHIN. 


tions by sympathy, and made even the lowest success*** 
noble by the endearing associations with which we allied 
them ! How much sweeter to you will be such honors 
than those which you might command at once, but accom- 
panied by a cold heart; rendered wearisome because won 
with ease, and low because undignified by fame ! Oh, 
Constance ! am I not heard ? Have not love, nature, 
sense, triumphed?” 

As he spoke, he had risen gently, and wound his arms 
around her not reluctant form : her head reclined upon his 
bosom; her hand was surrendered to his; and his kiss 
stole softly and unchidden to her cheek. At that instant, 
the fate of both hung on a very hair. How different 
might the lot, the character, of each have been, had Con- 
stance’s lips pronounced the words that her heart already 
recorded! And she might have done so; but, as she 
raised her eyes, the same object that had before affected 
Godolphin came vividly upon her, and changed, as by an 
electric shock, the whole current of her thoughts. Full 
and immediately before her was the picture of her father. 
The attitude there delineated, so striking at all times, 
seemed to Constance at that moment more than ever im- 
pressive, and even awful in the livingness of its command. 
It was the face of Yernon in the act of speech — of warn- 
ing — of reproof; such as she had seen it often in private 
life; such as she had seen it in his bitter maledictions on 
his hollow friends at the close of his existence : nay, such 
as she had seen it — only more fearful and ghastly with the 
hues of death — in his last hours ; in those hours in which 


GODOLPHIN. 


131 


he had pledged her to the performance of his revenge, and 
bade her live not for love but the memory of her sire. 

With the sight of that face rushed upon her the dark 
and solemn recollections of that time and of that vow. 
The weakness of love vanished before the returning force 
of a sentiment nursed through her earliest years, fed by 
her dreams, 'strengthened by her studies, and hardened by 
the daring energies of a nature lofty yet fanatical, into the 
rule, the end, nay, the very religion of life 1 She tore her- 
self away from the surprised and dismayed Godolphin ; 
she threw herself on her knees before the picture ; her lips 
moved rapidly ; the rapid and brief prayer for forgiveness 
was over, and Constance rose a new being. She turned 
to Godolphin, and, lifting her arm toward the picture, as 
she regarded, with her bright and kindling eyes, the face 
of her lover, she said : 

“As you think now, thought he whose voice speaks to 
you from the canvas ; he, who pursued the path that you 
would tread ; who, through the same toil, the same pur- 
suit, that you would endure, used the same powers and the 
same genius you would command; he, who won — what 
you might win also at last — the smile of princes, the trust 
of nobles, the shifting and sandy elevation which the best? 
the wisest, and greatest statesmen in this country, if un- 
backed by a sordid and cabaling faction, can alone obtain; 

he warns you from that hollow distinction, — from its 

wretched consummation. Oh, Godolphin !” she continued, 
subdued, and sinking from a high-wrought but momentary 
paroxysm, uncommon to her collected character, — “oh, 


132 


GODOLPHIN. 


Godolphin ! I saw that man dying, deserted, lonely, cursed 
by his genius, ruined by his prosperity. I saw him dying, 
—die , — of a broken and trampled heart. Could I doom 
another victim to the same course, and the same perfidy, 
and the same fate ? Could I, with a silent heart, watch by 
that victim ; could I, viewing his certain doom, elate him 
with false hopes ? — No, no 1 fly from me, — from the thought 
of such a destiny. Marry one who can bring you wealth, 
and support you with rank ; then be ambitious, if you will. 
Leave me to fulfill my doom, — my vow ; and to think, 
however wretched I may be, that I have not inflicted a 
permanent wretchedness on you.” ‘ 

Godolphin sprang forward ; but the door closed upon 
his eyes; and he saw Constance — as Constance Vernon — 
no more. 


CHAPTER XIX 

A RAKE AND EXQUISITE OP THE BEST (WORST) SCHOOL — A CONVER- 
SATION ON A THOUSAND MATTERS THE DECLENSION OF THH 

“SUI PROFUSUS” INTO THE “ALIENI APPETENS.” 

There was, in the day I now refer to, a certain houue 
in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, which few young men anx- 
ious for the eclat of society passed without a wish for the 
acquaintance of the inmate. To that small and dingy 
mansion, with its verandas of dusky green, and its blinds 
perpetually drawn, there attached an interest, a considera- 
tion, and a mystery. Thither, at the dusk of night, were 


GODOLFIIIN. 


133 


the hired carriages of intrigue wont to repair, and dames 
to alight, careful seemingly of concealment, yet wanting, 
perhaps, even a reputation to conceal Few, at the early 
nours of morn, passed that street in their way home from 
some glittering revel, without noticing some three or four 
chariots in waiting; — or without hearing from within the 
walls the sounds of protracted festivity. That house was 
the residence of a man who had never done anything in 
public, and yet was the most noted personage in “So- 
ciety:” in early life, the all- accomplished Lovelace ; in 
later years, mingling the graces with the decayed heart and 
the want of principle of a Grammont. Feared, contemned, 
loved, hated, ridiculed, honored, the very genius, the very 
personification, of a civilized and profligate life seemed 
embodied in Augustus Saville. Hitherto we have spoken 
of, let us now describe him. 

Born to the poor fortunes and equivocal station of cadet, 
in a noble but impoverished house, he had passed his ex- 
istence in a round of lavish, but never inelegant dissipa- 
tion. Unlike other men, whom youth, and money, and the 
flush of health, and aristocratic indulgence, allure to follies, 
which shock the taste as well as the morality of the wise, 
Augustus Saville had never committed an error which was 
not varnished by grace, and limited by a profound and 
worldly discretion. A systematic votary of pleasure— no 
woman had ever through him lost her reputation or her 
sphere ; whether it was that he corrupted into fortunate 
dissimulation the minds that he betrayed into guilt, or 
whether he chose his victims with so just a knowledge of 
12 


134 


GODOLPIIIN. 


their characters, and of the circumstances round them, that 
he might be sure the secrecy maintained by himself would 
scarcely be divulged elsewhere. All the world attributed 
to Augustus Saville the most various and consummate 
success in that quarter in which success is most envied by 
the lighter part of the world : yet no one could say ex- 
actly who, among the many he addressed, had been the 
object of his triumph. The same quiet, and yet victorious 
discretion waited upon all he did. Never had he stooped 
to win celebrity from horses or from carriages ; nothing in 
his equipages showed the ambition to be distinguished 
from another ; least of all did he affect that most displeas- 
ing of minor ostentations, that offensive exaggeration of 
neatness, that outre simplicity which our young nobles 
and aspiring bankers so ridiculously think it bon ton to 
assume. No harness, industriously avoiding brass; no 
liveries, pretending to the tranquillity of a gentleman’s 
dress; no panels, disdaining the armorial attributes of 
which real dignity should neither be ashamed nor proud — 
converted plain taste into a display of plainness He 
seldom appeared at races, and never hunted; though he 
was profound master of the calculations in the first, and 
was, as regarded the second, allowed to be one of the most 
perfect masters of horsemanship in his time. So, in his 
dress, while he chose even sedulously what became him 
most, he avoided the appearance of coxcombry, by a dis- 
regard to minutiae. He did not value himself on the per- 
fection of’ his boot ; and suffered a wrinkle in his coat 
without a sigh : yet, even the exquisites of the time 


GODOLPHIN. 


135 


allowed that no one was more gentleman-like in the tout* 
ensemble ; and while he sought by other means than dress 
to attract, he never even in dress offended. Carefully 
shunning the character of the professed wit, or the general 
talker, he was yet piquant, shrewd, and animated to the 
few persons whom he addressed, or with whom he asso- 
ciated : and though he had refused all offers to enter 
public life, he was sufficiently master of the graver subjects 
that agitated the times, to impress even those practically 
engaged in them with a belief in his information and his 
talents. 

But he was born poor ; and yet he had lived for nearly 
thirty years as a rich man 1 What was his secret ? — he 
had lived upon others ! At all games of science, he played 
with a masterly skill ; and in those wherein luck prepon- 
derates, there are always chances for a cool and systematic 
calculation. He had been, indeed, suspected of unfair 
play ; but the charge had never cooled the eagerness with 
which he had been courted. With far better taste, and in 
far higher estimation than Brummell, he obtained an equal, 
though a more secret sway. Every one was desirous to 
know him : without his acquaintance the young debutant 
felt that he wanted the qualification to social success : by 
his intimacy, even vulgarity became the rage. It was true 
that* as no woman’s disgrace was confessedly traced to 
him, so neither was any man’s ruin — save only in the doubt- 
ful instance of the unfortunate Johnstone. He never won 
of any person, however ardent, more than a certain portion 
of his fortune — the rest of his undoing Saville left to his 


136 


GODOLPniN. 


satellites; nay, even those who had in reality most reason 
to complain of him, never perceived his due share in their 
impoverishment. It was common enough to hear men say, 
“Ah 1 Saville, I wish I had taken your advice, and left off 
while I had yet half my fortune 1” They did not accurately 
heed that the first half was Saville’s ; because the first half 
had excited, not ruined them. 

Besides this method of making money, so strictly social, 
Saville had also applied his keen intellect and shrewd 
sense to other speculations. Cheap houses, cheap horses, 
fluctuations in the funds, all descriptions of property (ex- 
cept perhaps stolen goods) had passed under his earnest 
attention ; and in most cases, such speculations had emi- 
nently succeeded. He was therefore now, in his middle 
age, and still unmarried, a man decidedly wealthy ; having, 
without ever playing the miser, without ever stinting a 
luxury or denying a wish, turned nothing into something 
poverty into opulence 

It was noon ; and Saville was slowly finishing his morn 
ing repast, and conversing with a young man stretched on 
a sofa opposite in a listless attitude. The room was in 
perfect keeping with the owner: there was neither velvet, 
nor gilding, nor buhl , nor marquetrie — all of which would 
have been inconsistent with the moderate size of the apart- 
ment. But the furniture was new, massive, costly, and 
luxurious without the ostentation of luxury. A few good 
pictures, and several exquisite busts and figures in bronze, 
upon marble pedestals, gave something classic and grace- 
ful to the aspect of the room. Annexed to the back 


aODOLPHIN. 


137 


drawing-room, looking over Lord Chesterfield’s gardens, a 
small conservatory, filled with rich exotics, made the only 
feature in the apartment that might have seemed, to a fas- 
tidious person, effeminate or unduly voluptuous. 

Saville himself was about forty -seven years of age : of 
a person slight and thin, without being emaciated: a not 
ungraceful, though habitual stoop, diminished his height, 
which might be a little above the ordinary standard. In 
his youth he had been handsome ; but in his person there 
was now little trace of any attraction beyond that of a 
manner remarkably soft and insinuating : yet in his narrow 
though high forehead — his sharp aquiline nose, gray eye, 
and slightly sarcastic curve of lip, something of his char- 
acter betrayed itself. You saw, or fancied you saw in 
them the shrewdness, the delicacy of tact ; the conscious- 
ness of duping others; the subtle and intuitive, yet bland 
and noiseless penetration into the characters around him, 
which made the prominent features of his mind. And, 
indeed, of all qualities, dissimulation is that which betrays 
itself the most often in the physiognomy. — A fortunate 
thing, that the long habit of betraying should find at 
times the index in which to betray itself. 

“But you don’t tell me, my dear Godolphin,” said Saville, 
as he broke the toast into his chocolate, — “you don’t tell 
me how the world employed itself at Rome. Were there 
any of the true caliber there ? steady fellows, yet ardent, 

like myself? men who make us feel our strength and put 

it forth— with whom we cannot dally nor idle— who re- 
quire our coolness of head, clearness of memory, ingenuity 
12 * 


138 


GODOLPHIN. 


of stratagem — in a word, men of my art — the art of play; 
— were there any such ?” 

“ Not many, but enough for honor,” said Godolphin ; 
“for myself, I have long forsworn gambling for profit . n • 

“Ah ! I always thought you wanted that perseverance 
which belongs to strength of character. And how stand 
your resources now ? Sufficient to recommence the world 
here with credit and &clat ?” 

“Ay, were I so disposed, Saville. But I shall return to 
Italy. Within a month hence, I shall depart.” 

“ What 1 and only just arrived in town ! An heir in 
possession !” 

“ Of what ?” 

“ The reputation of having succeeded to a property, the 
extent of which, if wise, you will tell to no one ! — Are you 
so young, Godolphin, as to imagine that it signifies one 
crumb of this bread what be the rent-roll of your estate, 
so long as you can obtain credit for any sum to which you 

are pleased to extend it?— Credit ! beautiful invention J . 

the moral new world to which we fly when banished from 
the old. Credit! — the true charity of Providence, by which 
they who otherwise would starve live in plenty and despise 
the indigent rich. Credit! — admirable system, alike for 
those who live on it and the wiser few who live by it.— 
Will you borrow some money of me, Godolphin ?” 

“At what percentage?” 

“Why, let me see: funds are low; I’ll be moderate. 
But stay; be it with you as I did with George Sinclair 
You shall have all you want, and pay me with a premium, 


GODOLPHIN. 


139 


when you marry an heiress. — Why, man, you wince at the 
word ‘ marry P ” 

“’Tis a sore subject, Saville : one that makes a man 
think of halters. 

“You are right: — I recognize my young pupil. Your 
old play-writers talked nonsense when they said men lost 
liberty of person by marriage. Men lose liberty, but it is 
the liberty of the mind. We cease to be independent of 
the world’s word when we grow respectable with a wife, a 
fat butler, two children, and a family coach. — It makes a 
gentleman little better than a grocer or a king ! But you 
have seen Constance Yernon. — Why, out on this folly, 
Godolphin 1 You turn away. Do you fancy that I did 
not penetrate your weakness the moment you mentioned 
her name? — still les-s, do you fancy, my dear young friend, 
that I, who have lived through nearly half a century, and 
know our nature, and the whole thermometer of our blood, 
think one jot the worse of you for forming a caprice, or a 
passion, if you will — for a woman who would set an an- 
choret, or, what is still colder, a worn-out debauchee, on 
fire ? Bah ! Godolphin, I am wiser than you take me for. 
And I will tell you more. For your sake, I am happy that 
you have incurred already this, our common folly (which 
we all have once in a life), and that the fit is over. I do 
not pry into your secrets ; I know their delicacy. I do 
not ask which of you drew back ; for, to have gone for- 
ward, to have married, would have been madness in both. 
Nay, it was an impossibility: it could not have happened 
to my pupil, — the ablest, the subtlest, the wisest of my 


140 


GODOLPHIN. 


pupils. But, however it was broken off I repeat that I 
am glad it happened. One is never sure of a man’s wis- 
dom, till he has been really and vainly in love. You know 
what that moralizing lump of absurdity, Lord Edouard, 
has said in the Julie , — * the path of the passions conducts 
us to philosophy!’ It is true, very true: and now that 
the path has been fairly trod, the goal is at hand. Now , 
I can confide in your steadiness; now, I can feel that you 
will run no chance, in future, of overappreciating that 
bauble, Woman. You will beg, borrow, steal, and ex- 
change, or lose the jewel, with the same delicious excite- 
ment, coupled with the same steady indifference, with which 
we play at a more scientific game and for a more compre- 
hensive reward. I say more comprehensive reward : for 
how many women may we be able to buy by a judicious 
bet on the odd trick !” 

“Your turn is sudden,” said Godolphin, smiling; “and 
there is some justice in your reasoning. The fit is over; 
and if ever I can be wise, I have entered on wisdom now 
But talk of this no more.” 

“I will not,” said Saville, whose unerring tact had 
reached just the point where to stop, and who had led 
Godolphin through just that vein of conversation, half 
sentimentalizing, half sensible, all profligate, which seldom 
fails to win the ear of a man both of imagination and of 
the world. “ I will not ; and, to vary the topic, I will 
turn egoist, and tell you my adventures.” 

With this, Saville began a light and amusing recital of 
his various and singular life for the last three years. Anec- 


godolphin. 


141 


dote, jest, maxim, remark, interspersed, gave a zest and 
piquancy to the narration. An accomplished roue always 
affects to moralize ; it is a part of his character. There 
is a vague and shrewd sentiment that pervades his morale 
and his system. Frequent excitement, and its attendant 
relaxation ; the conviction of the folly of all pursuits ; the 
insipidity of all life ; the hollowness of all love ; the faith- 
lessness in all ties; the disbelief in all worth; these con- 
sequences of a dissipated existence on a thoughtful mind, 
produce some remarkable, while they make so many 
wretched characters. They colored some of the most 
attractive prose among the French, and the most fasci- 
nating verse in the pages of Byron. It might be asked 
by a profane inquirer (and I have touched on this before), 
what effect a life nearly similar — a life of luxury, indolence, 
lassitude, profuse but heartless love, imparted to the deep 
and touching wisdom in his page, whom we consider the 
wisest of men, and who has left us the most melancholy of 
doctrines ? 

It was this turn of mind that made Saville’s conver- 
sation peculiarly agreeable to Godolphin in his present 
humor; and the latter invested it, from his own mood, 
with a charm which in reality it wanted. For, as I shall 
show, in Godolphin, what deterioration the habits of frivo- 
lous and worldly life produce on the mind of a man of 
genius, I show only in Saville the effect they produce on 
a man of sense. 

“Well, Godolphin,” said Saville, as he saw the former 
rise to depart, * you will at least dine with me to-day — a 


142 


GODOLPHIN. 


punctual eight. I think I can promise you an agreeable 
evening. The Linettini, and that dear little Fanny Mil- 
linger (your old flame), are coming; and I have asked 
old Stracey, the poet, to say bons mots for them. Poor 
old Stracey 1 He goes about to all his former friends and 
fellow-liberals, boasting of his favor with the Great, and 
does not see that we only use him as we would a puppet- 
show or a dancing dog.” 

“What folly,” said Godolphin, “it is in any man of 
genius (not also of birth) to think the Great of this country 
can possibly esteem him ! Nothing can equal the secret 
enmity with which dull men regard an intellect above their 
comprehension. Party politics, and the tact, the shifting, 
the commonplace that Party politics alone require ; these 
they can appreciate ; and they feel respect for an orator, 
even though he be not a county member ; for he can assist 
them in their paltry ambition for place and pension : but 
an author, or a man of science, the rogues positively jeer 
at him 1” 

“And yet,” said Saville, “how few men of letters per- 
ceive a truth so evident to us, so hackneyed even in the 
conversations of society! For a little reputation at a 
dinner-table, for a coaxing note from some titled demirep 
affecting the De Stael, they forget not only to be glorious 
but even to be respectable. And this, too, not only for 
so petty a gratification, but for one that rarely lasts above 
a London season. We allow the low-born author to 
be the lion this year; but we dub him a bore the 
next. We shut our doors upon his twice-told jests, and 


GODOLPHIN. 


143 


send for the Prague minstrels to sing to us after dinner 
instead. ” 

“ However,” said Godolphin, “it is only poets you find 
so foolish as to be deceived by you. There is not a single 
prose writer of real genius so absurd.” 

“And why is that ?” 

“Because,” replied Godolphin, philosophizing, “poets 
address themselves more to women than men ; and insensi- 
bly they acquire the weaknesses which they are accustomed 
to address. A poet whose verses delight the women will 
be found, if we closely analyze his character, to be very 
like a woman himself.” 

“You don’t love poets?” said Saville. 

“ The glory of old has departed from them. I mean 
less from their pages than their minds. We have plenty 
of beautiful poets, but how little poetry breathing of a 
great soul I” 

Here the door opened, and a Mr. Glosson was announced. 
There entered a little, smirking, neat-dressed man, prim as 
a lawyer or a house-agent. 

“Ah, Glosson, is that you?” said Saville, with some- 
thing like animation : “ sit down, my good sir, — sit down. 
Well ! well !” rubbing his hands ; “ what news ? what news ?” 

“ Why, Mr. Saville, I think we may get the land from 

old . He has the right of the job . I have been 

with him all this morning. He asks six thousand pounds 
for it.” 

“ The unconscionable dog I He got it from the crowE 
for two ,f 


144 


GODOLPHIN. 


“Ah, very true, — very true : but you don’t see, sir,— « 
you don’t see, that it is well worth nine. Sad times,— 
sad times : jobs from the crown are growing scarcer every 
day, Mr. Saville.” 

“Humph! that’s all a chance, a speculation. Times 
are bad, indeed, as you say : no money in the market ; go, 
Glosson ; offer him five ; your percentage shall be one per 
cent, higher than if I pay six thousand, and shall be 
counted up to the latter sum.” 

“He! he! he! sir!” grinned Glosson: “you are fond 
of your joke, Mr. Saville.” 

“Well, now; what else in the market? never mind my 
friend : Mr. Godolphin — Mr. Glosson ; now all gene is 
over; proceed, — proceed.” 

Glosson hummed, and bowed, and hummed again, and 
then glided on to speak of houses, and crown lands, and 
properties in Wales, and places at court (for some of the 
subordinate posts at the palace were then — perhaps are 
now — regular matter of barter); and Saville, bending over 
the table, with his thin delicate hands clasped intently, and 
his brow denoting his interest, and his sharp shrewd eye 
fixed on the agent, furnished to the contemplative Godol- 
phin a picture which he did not fail to note, to moralize 
on, to despise ! 

What a spectacle is that of the prodigal rake, hardening 
and sharpening into the grasping speculator ! 


GODOLPHIN. 


HE 


CHAPTER XX. 

S' ANN Y MILLINOER ONCE MORE — LOVE — WOMAN — BOOKS — A HUN« 

DRED TOPICS TOUCHED ON THE SURFACE GODOLPHIN’s STATE 

OF MIND MORE MINUTELY EXAMINED THE DINNER AT SA- 

WILLE’S. 

Godolphin went to see and converse with Fanny Mil- 
linger. She was still unmarried, and still the fashion. 
There was a sort of allegory of real life, in the manner in 
which, at certain epochs, our Idealist was brought into 
contact with the fair actress of ideal creations. There 
was, in short, something of a moral in the way these two 
streams of existence — the one belonging to the Actual, the 
other to the Imaginary — flowed on, crossing each other at 

stated times. Which was the more really imaginative 

the life of the stage, or that of the world’s stage ? 

The gay Fanny was rejoiced to welcome back again her 
early lover. She ran on, talking of a thousand topics, 
without remarking the absent mind and musing eye of 
Godolphin, till he himself stopped her somewhat abruptly: 

“Well, Fanny, well, and what do you know of Saville ? 
You have grown intimate with him, eh? We shall meet 
at his house this evening.” 

^Oh, yes, he is a charming person in his little way; 
and the only man who allows me to be a friend without 
dreaming of becoming a lover. Xow that’s what I like. 

13 


K 


146 


GODOLPHIN. 


We poor actresses have so much would-be love in the 
course of our lives, that a little friendship now and then is 
a novelty which other and soberer people can never ap 
preciate. On reading ‘ Gil Bias ’ the other day — I am m 
great reader, as you may remember — I was struck by that 
part in which the dear Santillane assures us that there 
was never any love between him and Laura the actress. I 
thought it so true to nature, so probable, that they shoyld 
have formed so strong an intimacy for each other, lived in 
the same house, had every opportunity for love, yet never 
loved. And it was exactly because she was an actress, 
and a light good-for-nothing creature, that it so happened ; 
the very multiplicity of lovers prevented her falling in love : 
the very carelessness of her life, poor girl, rendered a friend 
so charming to her. It would have spoiled the friend to 
have made him an adorer; it would have turned the rarity 
into the everyday character. Now, so it is with me and 
Saville ; I like his wit, he likes my good temper. We see 
each other as often as if we were in love ; and yet I do not 
believe it even possible that he should ever kiss my hand. 
After all,” continued Fanny, laughing, “love is not so 
necessary to us women as people think. Fine writers say, 
‘ Oh, men have a thousand objects, women but one !’ That’s 
nonsense, dear Percy ; women have their thousand objects 
too. They have not the bar, but they have the milliner’s 
shop ; they can’t fight, but they can sit by the window and 
embroider a work-bag ; they don’t rush into politics, but 
they plunge their souls into love for a parrot or a lap-dog. 
Don’t let men flatter themselves ; Providence has been just 


GODOLPHIN. 14? 

as kind in that respect to one sex as to the other ; our ob- 
jects are small, yours great ; but a small object may occupy 
the mind just as much as the loftiest.” 

“ Ours great! pshaw!” said Godolphin, who was rather 
struck with Fanny’s remarks ; “ there is nothing great in 
those professions which man is pleased to extol. Is self- 
ishness great? Are the low trickery, the organized lies 
of the bar, a great calling ? Is the mechanical slavery of 
the soldier — fighting because he is in the way of fighting, 
without knowing the cause, without an object, save a dim, 

foolish vanity which he calls glory, and cannot analyze 

is that a great aim and vocation ? Well : the senate ! 
look at the outcry which wise men make against the loath- 
some corruption of that arena ; then look at the dull 
hours, the tedious talk, the empty boasts, the poor and 
flat rewards, and tell me where is the greatness? No, 
Fanny ! the embroidered work-bag, and the petted parrot, 
afford just as great — morally great — occupations as those 
of the bar, the army, the senate. It is only the frivo- 
lous who talk of frivolities: there is nothing frivolous: 
all earthly occupations are on a par — alike important if 
they alike occupy ; for to the wise all are poor and value- 
less.” 

“I fancy you are very wrong,” said the actress, pressing 
her pretty fingers to her forehead, as if to understand him; 
“ but I cannot tell you why, and I never argue. I ramble 
on in my odd way, casting out my shrewd things without 
defending them if any one chooses to quarrel with them. 
What I do I let others do. My maxim in talk is my 


148 


GODOLPHIN. 


maxim in life. I claim liberty for myself, and give in- 
dulgence to others.” 

“ I see,” said Godolphin, “ that you have plenty of books 
about you, though you plead not guilty to reading. Do 
you learn your philosophy from them ? for I think you 
have contracted a vein of reflection since we parted, which 
I scarcely recognize as an old characteristic.” 

“Why,” answered Fanny, “though I don’t read, I skim. 
Sometimes I canter through a dozen novels in a morning. 
I am disappointed, I confess, in all these works. I want 
to see more real knowledge of the world than they ever 
display. They tell us how Lord Arthur looked, and Lady 
Lucy dressed, and what was the color of those curtains, 
and these eyes, and so forth : and then the better sort, 
perhaps, do also tell us what the heroine felt as well as 
wore, and try with might and main to pull some string of 
the internal machine ; but still I am not enlightened, not 
touched. I don’t recognize men and women; they are 
puppets with holiday phrases : and I tell you what, Percy, 
these novelists make the last mistake you would suppose 
them guilty of ; they have not romance enough in them to 
paint the truths of society. Old gentlemen say novels are 
bad teachers of life, because they make it too ideal; quite 
the reverse : novels are too trite I too superficial 1 their 
very talk about love, and the fuss they make about it, show- 
how shallow real romance is with them ; for they say no- 
thing new on it, and real romance is forever striking out 
new thoughts. Am I not right, Percy ? — No ! life, be it 
worldly as it may, has a vast deal of romance in it. Every 


GODOLPHIN. 


149 


one of us (even poor I) have a mine of thoughts, and fancies, 
and wishes, that books are too dull and commonplace to 
reach : the heart is a romance in itself.” 

“A philosophical romance, my Fanny ; full of mysteries 
and conceits, and refinements, mixed up with its deeper 
passages. But how came you so wise ?” 

“ Thank you !” answered Fanny, with a profound curtsy. 
“The fact is — though you, as in. duty bound, don’t perceive 
it — that I am older than I was when we last met. I re- 
flect where I then felt. Besides, the stage fills our heads 
with a half sort of wisdom, and gives us that strange 
melange of shrewd experience and romantic notions which 
is, in fact, the real representation of nine human hearts 
out of ten. Talking of books, I want some one to write a 
novel which shall be a metaphysical Gil Bias ; which shall 
deal more with the mind than Le Sage’s book, and less 
with the actions ; which shall make its hero the creature of 
the world, but a different creation, though equally true ; 
which shall give a faithful picture in the character of one 
man of the aspect and the effects of our social system ; 
making that man of a better sort of clay than the amusing 
lackey was, and the product of a more artificial grade of 
society. The book I mean would be a sadder one than 
Le Sage’s, but equally faithful to life.” 

“And it would have more of romance, if I rightly under- 
stand what you mean ?” 

“ Precisely : romance of idea as well as incident — natural 
romance. By-the-way, how few know what natural ro- 
mance is : so that you feel the ideas in a book or play are 
13 * 


150 


GODOLPHIN. 


true and faithful to the characters they are ascribed to, 
why mind whether the incidents are probable ? Yet com- 
mon readers only go by the incidents ; as if the incidents 
in three-fourths of Shakspeare’s plays were even ordinarily 
possible ! But people have so little nature in them, that 
they don’t know what is natural I” 

Thus Fanny ran on, in no very connected manner; 
stringing together those remarks which, unless I am mis- 
taken, show how much better an uneducated, clever girl, 
whose very nature is a quick perception of art, can play 
the critic, than the pedants who assume the office. 

But it was only for the moment that the heavy heart of 
Godolphin could forget its load. It was in vain that he 
sought to be amused while yet smarting under the fresh- 
ness of regret. A great shock had been given to his na- 
ture; he had loved against his will ; and as we have seen, 
on his return to the Priory, he had even resolved on curing 
himself of a passion so unprofitable and unwise. But the 
jealousy of a night had shivered into dust a prudence 
which never of right belonged to a very ardent and gener- 
ous nature : that jealousy was soothed, allayed ; but how 
fierce, how stunning was the blow that succeeded it ! Con- 
stance had confessed love, and yet had refused him for- 

ever! Clear and noble as to herself her motives might 
seem in that refusal, it was impossible that they should 
appear in the same light to Godolphin. Unable to pene- 
trate into the effect which her father’s death-bed and her 
own oath had produced on the mind of Constance ; how 
Indissolublj that remembrance had united itself with all 


GODOLPHIN. 


151 


her schemes and prospects for the future ; how marvel- 
ously, yet how naturally, it had converted worldly ambition 
into a sacred duty; — unable, I say, to comprehend all 
these various, and powerful, and governing motives, Go- 
dolphin beheld in her refusal only the aversion to share 
hia slender income, and the desire for loftier station. He 
considered, therefore, that sorrow was a tribute to her un- 
worthy of himself ; he deemed it a part of his dignity to 
strive to forget. That hallowed sentiment which, in some 
losses of the heart, makes it a duty to remember, and 
preaches a soothing and soft lesson from the very text of 
regret, was not for the wrung and stricken soul of Godol- 
phin. He only strove to dissipate his grief, and shut out 
from his mental sight the charmed vision of the first, the 
only woman he had deeply loved. 

Godolphin felt, too, that the sole impulse which could 
have united the fast-expiring energy and enterprise of his 
youth to the ambition of life was forever gone. With 
Constance — with the proud thoughts that belonged to her 
— the aspirings after earthly honors were linked, and with 
her were broken. He felt his old philosophy — the love of 
ease, the profound contempt for fame, — close, like the deep 
waters over those glittering hosts for whose passage they 
had been severed for a moment — whelming the crested and 
gorgeous visions forever beneath the wave ! Conscious of 
his talents — nay, swayed to and fro by the unquiet stir- 
rings of no common genius — Godolphin yet foresaw that he 
was not henceforth destined to play a shining part in the 
crowded drama of life. His career was already closed .* 


152 


GODOLPHIN. 


he might be contented, prosperous, happy ; but neve? 
great. He had seen enough of authors, and of the thorns 
that beset the paths of literature, to experience none of 
those delusions which cheat the blinded aspirer into the 
wilderness of publication — that mode of obtaining fame and 
hatred to which those who feel unfitted for more bustling 
concerns are impelled. Write he might: and'he was fond 
(as disappointment increased his propensities to dreaming) 
of brightening his solitude with the golden palaces and 
winged shapes that lie glassed within the fancy — the soul’s 
fairy-land. But the vision with him was only evoked one 
hour to be destroyed the next. Happy had it been for 
Godolphin, and not unfortunate perhaps for the world, 
had he learned at that exact moment the true motive for 
human action which he afterward, and too late, discovered. 
Happy had it been for him to have learned that there is an 
ambition to do good — an ambition to raise the wretched as 
well as to rise. 

Alas ! — either in letters or in politics, how utterly poor, 
barren, and untempting, is every path that points upward 
to the mockery of public eminence, when looked upon by a 
soul that has any real elements of wise or noble ; unless 
we have an impulse within, which mortification chills not 
— a reward without, which selfish defeat does not destroy. 

But, unblest by one friend really wise or good, spoilt by 
the world, soured by disappointment, Godolphin’s very 
faculties made him inert, and his very wisdom taught him 
to be useless. Again and again,— as the spider in some 
cell where no winged insect ever wanders, builds and re- 


GODOLPHIN. 


153 


builds his mesh,— the scheming heart of the idealist was 
doomed to weave net after net for those visions of the 
Lovely and the Perfect which never can descend to the 
gloomy regions wherein mortality is cast. The most com- 
mon disease to genius is nympholepsy— the saddening for 
a spirit that the world knows not. Ah ! how those out- 
ward disappointments which should cure, only feed the 
disease ! 

The dinner at Saville’s was gay and lively, as such enter- 
tainments with such participators usually are. If nothing 

in the world is more heavy than your formal banquet, 

nothing, on the other hand, is more agreeable than those 
well-chosen laissez aller feasts at which the guests are as 
happily selected as the wines ; where there is no form, no 
reserve, no effort ; and people, having met to sit still for a 
few hours, are willing to be as pleasant to each other as if 
they were never to meet again. Yet the conversation in 
all companies not literary turns upon persons rather than 
things ; and your wits learn their art only in the School 
for Scandal. 

“ Only think, Fanny,” said Saville, “of Clavers turning 
beau at his old age? He commenced with being a jockey; 
then he became an electioneerer ; then a methodist par- 
son ; then a builder of houses ; and now he has dashed 
suddenly up to London, rushed into the clubs, mounted a 
wig, studied an ogle, and walks about the Opera House 
swinging a cane, and, at the age of fifty-six, punching 
young minors in the side, and saying tremulously, l We 
young fellows 1’” 

13 * 


154 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ He hires pages to come to him in the Park with three- 
cornered notes,” said Fanny : “ he opens each with affected 
nonchalance ; looks full at the bearer ; and cries aloud— 
‘Tell your mistress I cannot refuse her:’ — then canters 
off, with the air of a man persecuted to death.” 

“But did you see what an immense pair of whiskers 
Chester has mounted ?” 

“ Yes,” answered a Mr. De Lacy ; “A says he has 

cultivated them in order to ‘ plant out’ his ugliness.” 

“ But vy you no talk, Monsieur de Dauphin ?” said the 
Linettini gently, turning to Pelcy: “you ver silent.” 

“Unhappily, I have been so long out of town that these 
anecdotes of the day are caviare to me.” 

“But so,” cried Saville, “would a volume of French 
Memoirs be to any one that took it up for the first time ; 
yet the French Memoirs amuse one exactly as much as if 
one had lived with the persons written of. Now that 
ought to be the case with conversations upon persons. I 
flatter myself, Fanny, that you and I hit off characters so 
well by a word or two, that no one who hears us wants to 
Imow anything more about them.” 

“I believe you,” said Godolphin; “and that is the 
reason you never talk of yourselves.” 

“ Bah 1 Apropos of egoists, did you meet Jack Barabel 
in Rome?” 

“ Yes, writing his travels. ‘Pray,’ said he to me (seizing 
me by the button) in the Coliseum, ‘ what do you think is the 
highest order of literary composition ?’ ‘ Why, an epic, I 

fancy,’ said 1 ; ‘or perhaps a tragedy, or a great history, 


GODOLPHIN. 


155 


or a novel like Don Quixote .’ ‘Pooh!’ quoth Barabel, 
looking important, ‘there’s nothing so high in literature 
as a good book of travels;’ then sinking his voice into a 
whisper, and laying his huger wisely on his nose, he hissed 
out, ‘ J have a quarto, sir, in the press 1’ ” 

“ Ha ! ha !” laughed Stracey, the old wit, picking his 
teeth, and speaking for the first time; “if you tell Barabel 
you have seen a handsome woman, he says, mysteriously 
frowning, ‘Handsome, sirl has she traveled ? — answer me 
that !”’ 

“But have you seen Paulton’s new equipage? Brown 
carriage, brown liveries, brown harness, brown horses, 
while Paulton and his wife sit within dressed in brown, 
cap-d-pie. The best of it is that Paulton went to his 
coachmaker to order his carriage, saying, ‘ Mr. Houlditch, 
I am growing old — too old to be eccentric any longer ; I 
must have something remarkably plain ;’ and to this hour 
Paulton goes brown-ivg about the town, crying out to 
every one, ‘Nothing like simplicity, believe me.’” 

“ He discharged his coachman for wearing white gloves 
instead of brown,” said Stracey. “‘What do you mean, 
sir,’ cried he, ‘ with your d — d showy vulgarities ? — don’t 
you see me toiling my soul out to be plain and quiet, and 
you must spoil all, by not being brown enough 1’ ” 

“Ah, Godolphin, you seem pensive,” whispered Fanny; 
° yet we are tolerably amusing, too.” 

“ My dear Fanny,” answered Godolphin, rousing him- 
self, “ the dialogue is gay, the actors know their parts, the 
lights are brilliant ; but — the scene — the scene cannot shift 


156 


GODOLPHIN. 


for me ! Call it what you will, I am not deceived. I see the 
paint and the canvas, but — and yet, away these thoughts 1 
Sha.1 I fill your glass, Fanny ?” 


CHAPTER XXL 

AN EVENT OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO TIIE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN 

THIS HISTORY — GODOLPHIN A SECOND TIME LEAVES ENGLAND. 

Godolphin was welcomed with enthusiasm by the London 
world. His graces, his manners, his genius, his bon ton , 
and his bonnes fortunes , were the theme of every society. 
Yerses imputed to him^-some erroneously, some truly — 
were mysteriously circulated from hand to hand ; and every 
one envied the fair inspirers to whom they were supposed 
to be addressed. 

It is not my intention to reiterate the wearisome echo of 
novelists, who descant on fashion and term it life. No 
description of rose-colored curtains and buhl cabinets — no 
miniature paintings of boudoirs and salons — no recital of 
conventional insipidities, interlarded with affected criti- 
cisms, and honored by the name of dramatic dialogue, 
shall lend their fascination to these pages. Far other and 
far deeper aims are mine in stooping to delineate the cus- 
toms and springs of polite life. The reader must give 
himself wholly up to me ; he must prepare to go with me 
through the grave as through the gay, and unresistingly to 


GOEOLPHIN. 


157 


tread the dark and subtle interest which alone I can im- 
part to these memoirs, or — let him close the book at once. 
I promise him novelty; but it is not, when duly scanned, 
a novelty of a light and frjvolous cast. 

But throughout that routine of dissipation in which he 
chased the phantom Forgetfulness, Godolphin sighed for 
the time he had fixed on for leaving the scenes in which it 
was pursued. Of Constance’s present existence he heard 
nothing; of her former triumphs and conquests he heard 
everywhere. And when did he ever meet one face, how- 
ever fair, which could awaken a single thought of admira- 
tion, while hers was yet all faithfully glassed in his remem- 
brance ? I know nothing that so utterly converts society 
into “the gallery of pictures,” as the recollection of one 
loved and lost. That recollection has but two cures — 
Time and the Hermitage. Foreigners impute to us the 
turn for sentiment ; alas I there are no people who have 
it less. We seek forever after amusement; and there is 
not one popular prose-book in our language in which the 
more tender and yearning secrets of the heart form the 
subject-matter. The “Corinne” and the “Julie” weary 
ns, or we turn them into sorry jests ! 

One evening, a little before his departure from England, 
— that a lingering and vague hope, of which Constance 
was the object, had considerably protracted beyond the 
allotted time, — Godolphin was at a house in which the 
hostess was a relation to Lord Erpingham. 

“ Have you heard,” asked Lady G- — , “ that my 
cousin Erpingham is to be married ?” 

14 


158 


GODOLPHIN. 


“No, indeed; to whom?” said Godolphin, eagerly. 

“ To Miss Yernon.” 

Sudden as was the shock, Godolphin heard, and changed 
neither hue nor muscle. 

“Are you certain of this?” asked a lady present. 

“ Quite : Lady Erpingham is my authority ; I received 
the news from herself this very day.” 

“And does she seem pleased with the match ?” 

“ Why, I can scarcely say, for the letter contradicts itself 
in every passage. Now, she congratulates herself on having 
so charming a daughter-in-law ; now, she suddenly stops 
short to observe what a pity it is that young men should 
be so precipitate 1 Now, she says what a great match it 
will be for her dear ward ! and now, what a happy one it 
will be for Erpingham ! * In short, she does not know 
whether to be pleased or vexed ; and that, pour dire vrai, 
is my case also.” 

“Why, indeed,” observed the former speaker, “Miss 
Yernon has played her cards well. Lord Erpingham 
would have been a great match in himself, with his person 
and reputation; Ah ! she was always an ambitious girl.” 

“And a proud one,” said Lady G . “Well, I sup- 

pose Erpingham House will be the rendezvous to all the 
blues, and wits, and savans. Miss Yernon is another 
Aspasia, I hear.” 

“ I hate girls who are so designing,” said the lady who 
spoke before, and had only one daughter, very ugly, who, 
at the age of thirty- five, was about to accept her first offer 
and marry a younger son in the Guards. “ I think she’s 


GODOLPHIN. 


159 


rather vulgar; for my part, I doubt if— I shall patronize 
her.” 

“Well, what do you think of it, Mr. Godolphin? you 

have seen Miss Yernon ?” 

Godolphin was gone. 

It was about ten days after this conversation that Go- 
dolphin, waiting at a hotel in Dover the hour at which 
the packet set sail for Calais, took up the “Morning 
Post;” and the first passage that met his eye was the one 
which I transcribe : 

“Marriage in High Life .— On Thursday last, at Wen- 
dover Castle, the Earl of Erpingham, to Constance, only 
daughter of the celebrated Mr. Yernon. The bride was 
dressed, etc. ” And then followed the trite yet pomp- 

ous pageantry of words — the sounding nothings — with 
which ladies who become countesses are knelled into mar- 
riage. 

“ The dream is over !” said Godolphin, mournfully, as the 
paper fell to the ground ; and, burying his face within his 
hands, he remained motionless till they came to announce 
the moment of departure. 

And thus Percy Godolphin left, for the second time, his 
native shores. When we return to him, what changes will 
the feelings, now awakened within him, have worked in 
his character 1 The drops that trickle within the cavern 
harden, yet brighten into spars as they indurate. Nothing 
is more polished, nothing more cold, than that wisdom 
which is the work of former tears, of former passions, and 
is formed within a musing and solitary mind ! 


160 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE BRIDE ALONE — A DIALOGUE POLITICAL AND MATRIMOKIAL — 

Constance’s genius for diplomacy — the character of her 

ASSEMBLIES HER CONQUEST OVER LADY DELVILLE. 

“ Bring me that book; place that table nearer; and 
leave me.” 

The Abigail obeyed the orders, and the young Countess 
of Erpingham was alone.^Alone ! what a word for a 
young and beautiful bride in the first months of her mar* 
riage 1 Alone, and in the heart of that mighty city in 
which rank and wealth — and they were hers — are the idols 
adored by millions. 

It was a room fancifully and splendidly decorated. 
Flowers and perfumes were, however, its chief luxury; 
and from the open window you might see the trees in the 
old Mall deepening into the rich verdure of June. That 
haunt, too — a classical haunt for London — was at the hour 
I speak of full of gay and idle life ; and there was some- 
thing fresh and joyous in the air, the sun, and the crowd 
of foot and horse that swept below. 

Was the glory gone from your brow, Constance: — or 
the proud gladness from your eye ? Alas ! are not the 
blessings of the world like the enchanted bullets ? — that 
which pierces our heart is united with the gift which our 
heart desired 1 


GODOLPIIIN. 


161 


Lord Erpingham entered the room. “ Well, Constance,” 
said he, “ shall you ride on horseback to-day ?” 

“ I think not.” 

“ Tjien I wish you would call on Lady Delville. You 
. see, Delville is of my party : we sit together. You should 
be very civil to her, and I did not think you were so the 
other night.” 

“You wish Lady Delville to support your political in 
terest; and, if I mistake not, you think her at present* 
lukewarm ?” 

“ Precisely.” 

“ Then, my dear lord, will you place confidence in my 
discretion ? I promise you, if you will leave me undis- 
turbed in my own plans, that Lady Delville shall be the 
most devoted of your party before the season is half over : 
but, then, the means will not be those you advise.” 

“Why, I advised none.” 

“Yes — civility; a very poor policy.” 

11 D — n it, Constance! why, you would not frown a 
great person like Lady Delville into affection for us ?” 

“ Leave it to me.” 

“Nonsense!” 

“ My dear lord, only try. Three months is all I ask. 
You will leave the management of politics to me ever 
afterward ! I was born a schemer. Am I not John Ver- 
non’s daughter ?” 

“Well, well, do as you will!” said Lord Erpingham. 
“But I see how it will end. However, you will call on 
Lady Delville to-day ?” 

14* L 


162 


GODOLPHIN. 


“If you wish it, certainly.” 

“I do.” 

Lady Delville was a proud, great lady ; not very much 
liked, and not so often invited by her equals as if she had 
been agreeable and a flirt. 

Constance knew with whom she bad to treat. She called 
on Lady Delville that day. Lady Delville was at honfe : 
a pretty and popular Mrs. Trevor was with her. 

Lady Delville received her coolly - — Constance was 
haughtiness itself. 

“You go to the Duchess of Daubigny’s to-night?” 
said Lady Delville, in the course of their broken conver- 
sation. 

“Indeed I do not. I like agreeable society. It shall 
be my object to form a circle that not one displeasing per- 
son shall obtain access to. Will you assist me, my dear 
Mrs, Trevor?” — and Constance turned, with her softest 
smile, to the lady she addressed. 

Mrs. Trevor was flattered: Lady Delville drew her- 
self up. 

“It is a small party at the duchess’s,” said the latter; 
“merely to meet the Duke and Duchess of C .” 

“Ah ! few people are capable of giving a suitable en- 
tertainment to the royal family.” 

“But surely none more so than the Duchess of Dau- 
bigny : — her house so large, her rank so great !” 

“ These are but poor ingredients toward the forming of 
an agreeable party,” said Constance, coldly. “ The mis- 
take made by common minds is, to suppose titles the only 


GODOLPHIN. 


163 


rank. Royal dukes love, above all other persons, to be 
amused ; and amusement is the last thing generally pro- 
vided for them.” 

The conversation fell into other channels. Constance 
rose 'to depart. She warmly pressed the hand of Mrs. 
Trevor, whom she had only seen once before. 

“A few persons come to me to-morrow evening,” said 
she; 11 do waive ceremony and join us. I can promise you 
that not one disagreeable person shall be present ; and 
that the Duchess of Daubigny shall write for an invitation, 
and be refused.” 

Mrs. Trevor accepted the invitation. 

Lady Delville was enraged beyond measure. Never 
was female tongue more bitter than hers at the expense of 
that insolent Lady Erpingham ! Yet Lady Delville was 
secretly in grief ; for the first time in her life, she was hurt 
at not having been asked to a party ; and being hurt be- 
cause she was not going, she longed most eagerly to go. 

The next evening .came. Erpingham House was not 
large, but it was well adapted to the description of assem- 
bly its beautiful owner had invited. Statues, busts, pic- 
tures, books, scattered or arranged about the apartments, 
furnished matter for intellectual conversation, or gave at 
least an intellectual air to the meeting. 

About a hundred persons were present. They were 
selected from the most distinguished ornaments of the 
time. Musicians, painters, authors, orators, fine gentle- 
men, dukes, princes, and beauties. One thing, however, 
was imperatively necessary in order to admit them the 


164 


GODOLPHIN. 


profession of liberal opinions. No Tory, however wise, 
eloquent, or beautiful, could, that evening, have obtained 
the sesame to those apartments. 

Constance never seemed more lovely, and never before 
was she so winning. The coldness and the arrogance of 
her manner were wholly vanished. To every one she spoke ; 
and to every one her voice, her manner, were kind, cordial, 
familiar ; but familiar with a soft dignity that heightened 
the charm. Ambitious not only to please but to dazzle, 
she breathed into her conversation all the grace and cul- 
ture of her mind. They who admired her the most, were 
the most accomplished themselves. Now exchanging with' 
foreign nobles that brilliant trifling of the world in which 
there is often so much penetration, wisdom, and research 
into character ; now with a kindling eye and animated 
cheek commenting, with poets and critics, on literature 
and the arts ; now, in a more remote and quiet corner, 
seriously discussing, with hoary politicians, those affairs 
in which even they allowed her shrewdness and her grasp 
of intellect; and combining with every grace and every 
accomplishment a rare and dazzling order of beauty — we 
may readily imagine the sensation she created, and the 
sudden and novel zest which so splendid an Armida must 
have given to the tameness of society. 

The whole of the next week, the party at Erpingham 
House was the theme of every conversation. Each person 
who had been there had met the lion he had been most 
anxious to see. The beauty had conversed with the poet, 
who had charmed her ; the young debutant in science had 


GODOLPHIN. 


165 


paid homage to the great professor of its loftiest mys- 
teries; the statesman had thanked the author who had 
defended his measures ; the author had been delighted 
with the compliment of the statesman. Every one then 
agreed that, while the highest rank in the kingdom had 
been there, rank had be.en the least attraction ; and those 
who before had found Constance repellent, were the very 
persons who now expatiated with th^' greatest rapture on 
the sweetness of her manners. Then, too, every one who 
had been admitted to the coterie dwelt on the rarity of 
the admission ; and thus, all the world were dying for an 
introduction to Erpingham House — partly, because it was 
agreeable — principally, because it was difficult. 

It soon became a compliment to the understanding to 
say of a person, “ He goes to Lady Erpingham’s !” They 
who valued themselves on their understandings moved 
heaven and earth to become popular with the beautiful 
countess. Lady Helville was not asked ; Lady Delville 
was furious: she affected disdain, but no one gave her 
credit for it. Lord Erpingham teased Constance on this 
point. 

“You see I was right; for you have affronted Lady 
Delville. She has made Delville look coolly on me; in a 
few weeks he will be a Tory : think of that, Lady Erping- 
ham 1” 

“ One month more,” answered Constance, with a smile, 
“ and you shall see.” 

One night, Lady Delville and Lady Erpingham met at 
a large party. The latter seated herself by her haughty 


166 


OODOLPHIN. 


enemy : not seeming to hee-d Lady Delville’s coolness, Con- 
stance entered into conversation with her. She dwelt 
upon books, pictures, music : her manner was animated, 
and her wit playful. Pleased, in spite of herself, Lady 
Delville warmed from her reserve. 

“My dear Lady Delville,” said Constance, suddenly 
turning her bright countenance on the countess with an 
expression of delighted surprise ; “ will you forgive me ? — . 
I never dreamed before that you were so charming a per- 
son I I never conceal my sentiments : and I own with 
regret and shame that, till this moment, I had never seen 
in your mind — whatever I might in your person — those 
claims to admiration which were constantly dinned into 
my ear.” 

Lady Delville actually colored. 

“Pray,” continued Constance, “condescend to permit 
me to a nearer acquaintance. Will you dine with us on 
Thursday ? — we shall have only nine persons besides your- 
self: but they are the nine persons whom I most esteem 
and admire.” 

Lady Delville accepted the invitation. From that hour, 
Lady Delville, — who had at first resented, from the deepest 
recess of her heart, Constance Vernon’s accession to rank 
and wealth, — who, had Constance deferred to her early 
acquaintance, would have always found something in her 
she could have affected to despise, — from that hour, Lady 
Delville was the warmest advocate, and, a little time after, 
the sincerest follower of the youthful countess. 


GODOLPHIN. 


J67 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

AN INSIGHT INTO THE REAL GRAND MONDE; — BEING A SEARCH 
BEHIND THE ROSE-OOLORED CURTAINS. 

The time we now speak of was the most brilliant the 
English world, during the last half century, has known. 
Lord Byron was in his brief and dazzling zenith ; De Stael 
was in London ; the Peace had turned the attention of 
rich idlers to social enjoyment and to letters. There was 
an excitement, and a brilliancy, and a spirituality , about 
our circles, which we do not recognize now. Never had 
a young and ambitious woman — a beauty and a genius — a 
finer moment for the commencement of her power. It was 
Constance’s early and bold resolution to push to the utmost 
- — even to exaggeration — a power existing in all polished 
states, but now mostly in this, — the power of Fashion 1 
This mysterious and subtle engine she was eminently skilled 
to move according to her will. Her intuitive penetration 
into character, her tact, and her grace, were exactly the 
talents Fashion most demands ; and they were at present 
devoted only to that sphere. The rudeness that she 
mingled, at times, with the bewitching softness and ease 
of manner she could command at others, increased the 
effect of her power. It is much to intimidate as well as to 


168 


GODOLPHIN. 


win. And her rudeness in a very little while grew popu« 
lar; for it was never exercised but on those whom the 
world loves to see humbled. Modest merit in any rank; 
and even insolence, if accompanied with merit, were always 
safe from her satire. It was the hauteur of foolish duch- 
esses or purse-proud roturiers that she loved, and scrupled 
not, to abase. 

And the independence of her character was mixed with 
extraordinary sweetness of temper. Constance could not 
be in a passion : it was out of her nature. If she was 
stung, she could utter a sarcasm ; but she could not frown 
or raise her voice. There was that magic in her, that she 
was always feminine. She did not stare young men out 
of countenance ; she never addressed them by their Chris- 
tian names ; she never flirted — never coquetted : the bloom 
and flush of modesty was yet all virgin upon her youth. 
She, the founder of a new dynasty, avoided what her suc- 
cessors and contemporaries have deemed it necessary to 
incur. She was the leader of fashion ; but — it is a mi- 
raculous union — she was respectable ! 

At this period, some new dances were brought into Eng- 
land. These dances found much favor in the eyes of several 
great ladies young enough to dance them. They met at 
each other’s houses in the morning, to practice the steps. 
A mong these was Lady Erpingham ; her house became 
the favorite rendezvous. 

The young Marquis of Dartington was one of the little 
knot. Celebrated for his great fortune, his personal beauty, 
and his general success, he resolved to fall in love with 


GODOLPHIN. 


169 


Lady Erpingham. He devoted himself exclusively to her; 
he joined her in the morning in her rides — in the evening 
in her gayeties. He had fallen in love with her ? — yes ! — 
did he love her? — not the least. But he was excessively 
idle ! — what else could he do? 

Constance early saw the attentions and designs of Lord 
Dartington. There is one difficulty in repressing advances 
in great society — one so easily becomes ridiculous by being 
a prude. But Constance dismissed Lord Dartington with 
great dexterity. This was the occasion : 

One of the apartments in Erpingham House communi- 
cated with a conservatory. In this conservatory Constance 
was alone one morning, when Lord Dartington, who had 
entered the house with Lord Erpingham, joined her. He 
was not a man who could ever become sentimental ; he was 
rather the gay lover — rather the Don Gaolor than the 
Amadis ; but he was a little abashed before Constance. 
He trusted, however, to his fine eyes and his good com- 
plexion — plucked up courage ; and, picking a flower from 
the same plant Constance was tending, said : 

“ I believe there is a custom in some part of the world 
to express love by flowers. May I, dear Lady Erping- 
ham, trust to this flower to express what I dare not 
utter ?” 

Constance did not blush, nor look confused, as Lord 
Dartington had hoped and expected. One who had been 
loved by Godolphin was not likely to feel much agitation 
at the gallantry of Lord Dartington ; but she looked 
gravely in his face, paused a little before she answered, 

15 


no 


GODOLPHIN. 


and then said, with a smile that abashed the suitor more 
than severity could possibly have done: 

“My dear Lord Dartington, do not let us mistake each 
other. I live in the world like other women, but I am 
not altogether like them. Not another word of gallantry 
to me, alone, as you value my friendship. Tn a crowded 
room, pay me as many compliments as you like. It will 
flatter my vanity to have you in my train. And now, just 
do me the favor to take these scissors and cut the dead 
leaves off that plant.” 

Lord Dartington, to use a common phrase, “hummed 
and hawed.” He looked, too, a little angry. An artful 
and shrewd politician, it was not Constance’s wish to cool 
the devotion, though she might the attachment, of a single 
member of her husband’s party. With a kind look — but a 
look so superior, so queenlike, so free from the petty and 
coquettish condescension of the sex, that the gay lord 
wondered from that hour how he could ever have dreamed 
of Constance as of certain other ladies — she stretched her 
hand to him. 

“We are friends, Lord Dartington? — and now we know 
each other, we shall be so always.” 

Lord Dartington bowed confusedly over the beautiful 
hand he touched ; and Constance, walking into the draw- 
ing-room, sent for Lord Erpingham on business Dart- 

ington took his leave. 


GODOLPHIN. 


m 


CHAPTER X X I Y. 

THE MARRIED STATE OF CONSTANCE. 

Constance, Countess of Erpingham, was young, rich, 
lovely as a dream, worshiped as a goddess. Was she 
happy ? and was her whole heart occupied with the trifles 
that surrounded her? 

Deep within her memory was buried one fatal image, 
that she could not exorcise. The reproaching and mourn- 
ful countenance of Godolphin rose before her at all times 
and seasons. The charm of his presence no other human 
being could renew. His eloquent and noble features, 
living and glorious with genius and with passion, his 
sweet deep voice, his conversation, so rich with mind and 
knowledge, and the subtle delicacy with which he applied 
its graces to some sentiment dedicated to her (delicious 
flattery, of all flatteries the most attractive to a sensitive 
and intellectual woman 1) — these occurred to her again 
and again, and rendered all she saw around her flat, weari- 
some, insipid. Nor was this deep-seated and tender weak- 
ness the only serpent — if I may use so confused a metaphor 
, — in the roses of her lot. 

And here I invoke the reader’s graver attention. The 
fate of women in all the more polished circles of society is 
eminently unnatural and unhappy. The peasant and his 


112 


GODOLPflltf. 


dame are on terms of equality — equality even of ambition : 
no career is open to one and shut to the other ; — equality 
even of hardship, and hardship is employment : no labor 
occupies the whole energies of the man, but leaves those 
of the woman unemployed. Is this the case with the 
wives in a higher station ? — the wives of the lawyer, the 
merchant, the senator, the noble ? There, the men have 
their occupations ; and the women (unless, like poor Fanny, 
work-bags and parrots can employ them) none. They are 
idle. They employ the imagination and the heart. They 
fall in love and are wretched ; or they remain virtuous, 
and are either wearied by an eternal monotony, or they 
fritter away intellect, mind, character, in the minutest 
frivolities — frivolities being their only refuge from stag- 
nation. Yes ! there is one very curious curse for the sex 
which men don’t consider ! Once married, the more aspir- 
ing of them have no real scope for ambition : the ambition 
gnaws away their content, and never finds elsewhere where- 
withal to feed on. 

This was Constance’s especial misfortune. Her lofty, and 
restless, and soaring spirit pined for a sphere of action, 
and ball-rooms and boudoirs met it on every side. One 
hope she did indeed cherish ; that hope was the source of 
her intriguings and schemes, of her care for seeming trifles, 
the waste of her energies on seeming frivolities. This 
hope, this object, was to diminish — to crush, not only the 
party which had forsaken her father, but the power of that 
order to which she belonged herself ; which she had entered 
only to humble But this hope was a distant and chill 


GODOLPHIN. 


173 


vision. She was too rational to anticipate an early and 
effectual change in our social state, and too rich in the 
treasures of mind to be the creature of one idea. Satiety 
— the common curse of the great — crept over her day by 
day. The powers within her lay stagnant — the keen in- 
tellect rusted in its sheath. 

“ How is it,” said she to the beautiful Countess of , 

“ that you seem always so gay and so animated ; that 
with all your vivacity and tenderness, you are never at 
a loss for occupation ? You never seem weary —ennuyee 
— why is this ?” 

“I will tell you,” said the pretty countess, archly: “I 
change my lovers every month.” Constance blushed, and 
asked no more. 

Many women in her state, influenced by contagious ex- 
ample, wearied by a life in which the heart had no share ; 
without children, without a guide ; assailed and wooed 
on all sides, in all shapes; — many women might have 
ventured, if not into love, at least into coquetry. But 
Constance remained as bright and cold as ever — “the un- 
sunned snow !” It might be, indeed, that the memory of 
Godolphin preserved her safe from all lesser dangers. The 
asbestos once conquered by fire can never be consumed by 
it ; but there was also another cause in Constance’s very 
nature — it was pride ! 

Oh 1 if men could but dream of what a proud woman 
endures in those caresses which humble her, they would not 
wonder why proud women are so difficult to subdue. This 
is a matter on which we all ponder much, but we dare not 
15 * 


174 


GODOLPIIIN. 


write honestly upon it. But imagine a young, haughty, 
guileless beauty, married to a man whom she neither loves 
nor honors ; and so far from that want of love rendering 
her likely to fall hereafter, it is more probable that it will 
make her recoil from the very name of love. 

About this time the Dowager Lady Erpingham died ; 
an event sincerely mourned by Constance, and which broke 
the strongest tie that united the younger countess to her 
lord. Lord Erpingham and Constance, indeed, now saw 
but little of each other. Like most men six feet high, with 
large black whiskers, the earl was vain of his person ; and, 
like most rich noblemen, he found plenty of ladies who 
assured him he was irresistible. He had soon grown 
angry at the unadmiring and calm urbanity of Constance ; 
and, living a great deal with single men, he formed liaisons 
of the same order they do. He was, however, sensible that 
he had been fortunate in the choice of a wife. His political 
importance the wisdom of Constance had quadrupled, at 
the least ; his house she had rendered the most brilliant in 
London, and his name the most courted in the lists of the 
peerage. Though munificent, she was not extravagant; 
though a beauty, she did not intrigue; neither, though 
his inconstancy was open, did she appear jealous ; nor, 
whatever the errors of his conduct, did she ever disregard 
his interest, disobey his wishes, or waver from the smooth 
and continuous sweetness of her temper. Of such a wife, 
Lord Erpingham could not complain : he esteemed her, 
praised her, asked her advice, and stood a little in awo 
of her. 


GO DOLPHIN. 


175 


Ah, Constance! had you been the daughter of a noble 
or a peasant — had you been the daughter of any man 
but John Vernon — what a treasure beyond price, without 
parallel, would that heart, that beauty, that genius have 
been ! 


CHAPTER XXV 

THE PLEASURE OF RETALIATING HUMILIATION CONSTANCES DE- 
FENSE OF FASHION REMARKS ON FASHION — GODOLPHIN’s WHERE- 
ABOUT FANNY MILLINGER’S CHARACTER OF HERSELF WANT OF 

COURAGE IN MORALISTS. 

It was a. proud moment for Constance, when the Duch- 
ess of Winstoun and Lady Margaret Midgecombe wrote 
to her, worried her, beset her, for a smile, a courtesy, an 
invitation, or a ticket to Almack’s. 

They had at first thought to cry her down ; to declare 
that she was plebeian, mad, bizarre , and a blue. It was 
all in vain. Constance rose every hour. They struggled 
against the conviction, but it would not do. Jhe first 
person who confounded them with a sense of their error 
was the late King, then Regent; he devoted himself to 
Lady Erpingham for a whole evening, at a ball given by 
himself. From that hour they were assured they had been 
wrong : they accordingly called on her the next day. 
Constance received them with the same coldness she had 
always evinced ; but they went away declaring they never 
saw any one whose manners were so improved. They then 


176 


G 0 DOLPHIN 


Bent her an invitation ! she refused it; a second ! she re- 
fused ; a third, begging her to fix the day ! ! ! she fixed the 
day, and disappointed them. Lord bless us ! — how sorry 
they were, how alarmed, how terrified ! — their dear Lady 
Erpingham must be ill ! — they sent every day for the next 
week to know how she was 1 

“Why,” said Mrs. Trevor to Lady Erpingham, — “why 
do you continue so cruel to these poor people? I know 
they were very impertinent, and so forth, once ; but it is 
surely wiser and more dignified now to forgive; to appear 
unconscious of the past : people of the world ought not 
to quarrel with each other.” 

“You are right, and yet you are mistaken,” said Con- 
stance : “ I do forgive, and I don’t quarrel ; but my 

opinion, my contempt, remain the same, or are rather more 
disdainful than ever. These people are not worth losing 
the luxury we all experience in expressing contempt. I 
continue, therefore, but quietly and without affectation, to 
indulge that luxury. Besides, I own to you, my dear 
Mrs. Trevor, I do think that the mere insolence of titles 
must fairly and thoroughly be put down, if we sincerely 
wish to render society agreeable; and where can we find 
a better example for punishment than the Duchess of 
Winstoun ?” 

“ But, my dear Lady Erpingham, you are thought in- 
solent : your friend, Lady , is called insolent, too : 

are you sure the charge is not merited ?” 

“I allow the justice of the charge; but, you will ob- 
serve, ours is not the insolence of rank : we have made it 


GODOLPIIIN. 


IT • 

a point to protect, to the utmost, the poor and unfriended 
of all circles. Are we ever rude to governesses or com- 
panions, or poor writers or musicians? When a man mar- 
ries below him, do we turn our backs on the poor wife ? 
Do we not, on the contrary, lavish our attention on her, 
and throw round her equivocal and joyless state the pro- 
tection of Fashion ? No, no 1 our insolence is justice ! 
it is the chalice returned to the lips which prepared it ; it 
is insolence to the insolent: reflect, and you will allow it.” 

The fashion that Constance set and fostered was of a 
generous order ; but it was not suited to the majority ; it 
was corrupted by her followers into a thousand basenesses. 
In vain do we make a law, if the general spirit is averse 
to the law. Constance could humble the great; could 
loosen the links of extrinsic rank ; could undermine the 
power of titles ; but that was all 1 She' could abase the 
proud, but not elevate the general tone : for one slavery 
she only substituted another, — people hugged the chains 
of Fashion, as before they hugged those of Titular Arro- 
gance. 

Amid the gossip of the day, Constance heard much of 
Godolphin, and all spoke of him with interest — even those 
who could not comprehend his very intricate and peculiar 
character. Separated from her by lands and seas, there 
seemed no danger in allowing herself the sweet pleasure 
of hearing his actions and his mind discussed. She fancied 
she did not permit herself to love him ; she was too pure 
not to start at such an idea; but her mind was not so 
regulated, so trained and educated in sacred principle, that 
15* M 


178 


GODOLPHIN. 


she forbade herself the luxury to remember. Of his pres- 
ent mode of life she heard little. He was traced from 
city to city; from shore to shore; from the haughty 
noblesse of Yienna to the gloomy shrines of Memphis, by 
occasional report, and seemed to tarry long in no place. 
This roving and unsettled life, which secretly assured her 
of her power, suffused his image in all tender and remorse- 
ful dyes. Ah 1 where is that one person to be envied, 
could we read the heart ? 

The actress had heard incidentally from Saville of Go- 
dolphin’s attachment to the beautiful countess. She longed 
to see her ; and when, one night at the theater, she was in- 
formed that Lady Erpingham was in the Lord Chamber- 
lain’s box close before her, she could scarcely command 
her self-possession sufficiently to perform with her wonted 
brilliancy of effect. 

She was greatly struck by the singular nobleness of 
Lady Erpingham’s face and person ; and Godolphin rose 
in her estimation, from the justice of the homage he had 
rendered to so fair a shrine. What a curious trait, by- 
tlie-by, that is in women ; — their exaggerated anxiety to 
see one who has been loved by the man in whom they 
themselves take interest; and the manner in which the 
said man rises or falls fn their estimation, according as 
they admire or are disappointed in the object of his love. 

“And so,” said Saville, supping one night with the 
actress, ‘'you think the world does not overlaud Lady 
Erpingham ?” 

“ No : she is what Medea would have been, if innocent 


GODOLPIIIN. 


179 


—full of majesty, and yet of sweetness. It is the face of 
a queen of some three thousand years back. s I could have 
worshiped her.” 

“My little Fanny, you are a strange creature. Me- 
thinks you have a dash of poetry in you.” 

“Nobody who has not written poetry could ever read 
my character,” answered Fanny with naivete , yet with 
truth. 

“ Yet you have not much of the ideal about you, pretty 
one.” 

“ No ; because I was so early thrown on myself, that I 
was forced to make independence my chief good. I soon 
saw that if I followed my heart to and fro, wherever it led 
me, I should be the creature of every breath— the victim 
of every accident : I should have been the very food of 
romance; lived on a smile; and died, perhaps, in a ditch 
at last. Accordingly, I set to work with my feelings, and 
pared and cut them down to a convenient compass. Happy 
for me that I did so 1 What would have become of me if, 
years ago, when I loved Godolphin, I had thrown the whole 
world of my heart upon him ?” 

“Why, he has generosity: he would not have deserted 

you.” 

“But I should have wearied him,” answered % Fanny ; 
“and that would have been quite enough for me. But I 
did love him well, and purely— (ah 1 you may smile !)— and 
disinterestedly. I was only fortified in my resolution not 
-o love any one too much, by perceiving that he had affec- 
tion but no sympathy for me. His nature was different 


180 


GODOLPHIN. 


from mine. I am woman in everything ; and Godolphin 
is always sighing for a goddess!” 

“ I should like to sketch your character, Fanny. It is 
original, though not strongly marked. I never met with it 
in any book; yet it is true to your sex, and to the world.” 

“ Few people could paint me exactly,” answered Fanny. 
“ The danger is, that they would make too much or too 
little of me. But such as I am, the world ought to know 
what is so common, and, as you think, so undescribed.” 

And now, beautiful Constance, farewell for the present ! 
I leave you surrounded by power, and pomp, and adula- 
tion. Enjoy as you may, that for which you sacrificed 
affection 1 


CHAPTER XX YI. 

THE VISIONARY AND HIS DAUGHTER AN ENGLISHMAN, SUCH A» 

FOREIGNERS IMAGINE THE ENGLISH. 

We must now present the reader to characters very 
different from those which have hitherto passed before his 
eye. 

Without the immortal city, along the Appia Yia, there 
dwelt a singular and romantic visionary, of the name of 
Yolktman. He was, by birth, a Dane; and nature had 
bestowed on him that frame of mind which might have 
won him a distinguished career, had she placed the period 
of his birth in the eleventh century. Yolktman was es* 


G 0 D O L I* II I N. 


181 


sentially a man belonging to the past time: the character 
of his enthusiasm was weird and Gothic; with beings of 
the present day he had no sympathy; their loves, their 
hatreds, their politics, their literature, awoke no echo in 
his breast. He did not affect 'to herd with them ; hie life 
was solitude, and its occupation study— and study of that 
nature which every day unfitted him more and more for 
the purposes of existence. In a word, he was a reader of 
the stars; a believer in the occult and dreamy science of 
astrology. Bred up to the art of sculpture, he had early 
in life sought Rome, as the nurse of inspiration ; but even 
then h.e had brought with him the dark and brooding tem- 
per of his northern tribe. The images of the classic 
world ; the bright, and cold, and beautiful divinities, whose 
natures as well as shapes the marble simulation of life is 
so especially adapted to represent; spoke but little to 
Volktman’s preoccupied and gloomy imagination. Faith- 
ful to the superstitions and the warriors of the North, the 
loveliness and majesty of the southern creations but called 
forth in him the desire to apply the principles by which 
they were formed to the embodying those stern visions 
which his haggard and dim fancies only could invoke. 
This train of inspiration preserved him, at least, from the 
deadliest vice in a worshiper of the arts — commonplace 
He was.no servile and trite imitator; his very faults were 
solemn and commanding. But before he had gained that 
long experience which can alone perfect genius, his natural 
energies were directed to new channels. In an illness, 
which prevented his applying to his art, he had accident- 
16 


182 


uODOLPHIN. 


ally sought entertainment in a certain work upon astrology. 
The wild and imposing theories of the science — if science 
it may be called — especially charmed and invited him. 
The clear bright nights of his fatherland were brought 
back to his remembrance ; he recalled the mystic and un- 
analyzed impressions with which he had gazed upon the 
lights of heaven ; and he imagined that the very vague- 
ness of his feelings was a proof of the certainty of the 
science. 

The sons of the North are pre-eminently, liable to be 
affected by that romance of emotion which the hushed and 
starry aspect of night is calculated to excite. The long- 
unbroken, luxurious silence that, in their frozen climate, 
reigns from the going down of the sun to its rise ; the 
wandering and sudden meteors that disport, as with an 
impish life, along the noiseless and solemn heaven ; the 
peculiar radiance of the stars; and even the sterile and 
severe features of the earth, which those stars light up with 
their chill and ghostly serenity, serve to deepen the effect 
of the wizard tales which are instilled into the ear of child- 
hood, and to connect the less known and more visionary 
impulses of life with the influences, or at least with the 
associations, of Night and Heaven. 

v To Yolktman, more alive than even his countrymen are 
wont to be to superstitious impressions, the science on 
which he had chanced came with an all-absorbing interest 
and fascination. He surrendered himself wholly to his 
new pursuit. By degrees, the block and the chisel were 
neglected, and, though he still worked from time to time, 


GODOLPHIN. 


183 


he ceased to consider the sculptor’s art as the vocation of 
his life and the end of his ambition. Fortunately, though 
not rich, Volktman was not without the means of exist- 
ence, nor even without the decent and proper comforts: so 
that he was enabled, as few men are, to indulge his ardor 
for unprofitable speculations, albeit to the exclusion of 
lucrative pursuits. It may be noted, that when a man is 
addicted to an occupation that withdraws him from the 
world, any great affliction tends to confirm, without hope 
of cure, his inclinations to solitude. The world, distaste- 
ful, in that it gave no pleasure, becomes irremediably 
hateful when it is coupled with the remembrance of pain. 
Yolktman had married an Italian, a woman who loved 
him entirely, and whom he loved with that strong though 
uncaressing affection common to men of his peculiar temper. 
Of the gay and social habits and constitution of her country, 
the Italian was not disposed to suffer the astrologer to 
dwell only among the stars. She sought, playfully and 
kindly, to attract him toward human society; and Yolkt- 
man could not always resist — as what man earthborn can 

do ? the influence of the fair presider over his house and 

hearth. It happened, that on one day in which she pe- 
culiarly wished his attendance at some one of those parties 
in which Englishmen think the notion of festivity strange 

for it includes conversation — Yolktman had foretold the 

menace of some great misfortune. Uncertain, from the 
character of the prediction, whether to wish his wife to re- 
main at home or to go abroad, he yielded to her wish, and 
accompanied her to her friend’s house. A young English* 


184 


30D0LPHIN 


man lately arrived at Rome, and already celebrated in the 
circles of that city for his eccentricity of life and his passion 
for beauty, was of the party. He appeared struck with the 
sculptor’s wife; and in his attentions, Yolktman, for the 
first and the last time, experienced the pangs of jealousy : 
he hurried his wife away. 

On their return home, whether or not a jewel worn by 
the signora had attracted the cupidity of some of the law- 
less race who live through gaining, and profiting by, such 
information, they were attacked by two robbers in the od- 
scure and ill lighted suburb. Though Yolktman offered 
no resistance, the manner of their assailants w r as rude and 
violent. The signora was fearfully alarmed ; her shrieks 
brought a stranger to their assistance ; it was the English 
youth who had so alarmed the jealousy of Yolktman. 
Accustomed to danger in his profession of a gallant, the 
Englishman seldom, in those foreign lands, went from 
hojne at night without the protection of pistols. At the 
sight of fire-arms, the ruffians felt their courage evaporate ; 
they fled from their prey; and the Englishman assisted 
Yolktman in conveying the Italian to her home. But 
the terror of the encounter operated fatally on a delicate 
frame; and within three weeks from that night, Yolktman 
was a widower. 

His marriage had been blessed with but one daughter, 
who at the time of this catastrophe was about eight years 
of age. His love for his child in some measure reconciled 
V olktman to life ; and as the shock of the event subsided, 
he returned, with a pertinacity which was now subjected to 


GODOLPIIIN. 


185 


do interruption, to his beloved occupations and mysterious 
researches. One visitor alone found it possible to win fre- 
quent ingress to his seclusion ; it was the young English 
man. A sentiment of remorse at the jealous feelings he 
had experienced, and for which his wife, though an Italian, 
had never given him even the shadow of a cause— had 
softened into a feeling rendered kind by the associations 
of the deceased, and a vague desire to atone to her for an 
unacknowledged error — the dislike he had at first con- 
ceived against the young man. This was rapidly con- 
firmed by the gentle and winning manners of the stranger, 
by his attentions to the deceased, to whom he had sent an 
English physician of great skill, and, as their acquaintance 
expanded, by the animated interest which he testified in 
the darling theories of the astrologer. 

It happened also that Yolktman’s mother had been the 
daughter of Scotch parents. She had taught him the 
English tongue ; and it was the only language, save his 
own, which he spoke as a native. This circumstance 
tended greatly to facilitate his intercourse with the trav- 
eler ; and he found in the society of a man ardent, sensi- 
tive, melancholy, and addicted to all abstract contempla- 
tion, a pleasure which, among the keen but uncultivated 
intellects of Italy, he had never enjoyed. 

Frequently, then, came the young Englishman to the 
lone house on the Appia Yia ; and the mysterious and 
unearthly conversation of the starry visionary afforded to 
him, who had early learned to scrutinize the varieties of 
his kind, a strange delight, heightened by the contrast it 
16 * 


186 


GODOLPHIN. 


presented to the worldly natures with which he usually 
associated, and the commonplace occupations of a life in 
pursuit of pleasure. 

And there was one who, child as she was, watched the 
coming of that young and beautiful stranger with emotion 
beyond her years. Brought up alone; mixing, since her 
mother’s death, with no companions of her age ; catching 
dim and solemn glimpses of her father’s wild but lofty 
speculations ; his books, filled with strange characters anil 
imposing “ words of mighty sound,” open forever to her 
young and curious gaze ; it can scarce be matter of wonder 
that something strange and unworldly mingled with the 
elements of character which Lucilla Yolktman early de- 
veloped — a character that was nature itself, yet of a nature 
erratic and bizarre . Her impulses she obeyed spontane- 
ously, but none fathomed their origin. She was not of a 
quiet and meek order of mind ; but passionate, changeful, 
and restless. She would laugh and weep without apparent 
cause ; the color on her cheek never seemed for two minutes 
the same ; and the most fitful changes of an April heaven 
were immutability itself compared with the play and luster 
of expression that undulated in her features, and her wild, 
deep, eloquent eyes. 

Her person resembled her mind : it was beautiful ; but 
the beauty struck you less than the singularity of its char- 
acter. Her eyes were of a darkness that at night seemed 
black ; but her hair was of the brightest and purest au- 
burn ; her complexion, sometimes pale, sometimes radiant 
even to the flush of a fever, was delicate and clear; her 


GODOLPHIN. 


187 


teeth and mouth were lovely beyond all words ; her hands 
and feet were small to a fault ; and as she grew up (for 
we have forestalled her age in this description), her shape, 
though wanting in height, was in such harmony and pro- 
portion, that the mind of the sculptor would sometimes 
escape from the absorption of the astrologer, and Yolkt- 
man would gaze upon her with the same admiration that 
he would have bestowed, in spite of the subject, on the 
goddess-forms of Phidias or Canova. But, then, this beauty 
was accompanied with such endless variety of gesture, 
often so wild, though always necessarily graceful, that the 
eye ached for that repose requisite for prolonged admi- 
ration. 

When she was spoken to, she did not often answer to 
the purpose, but rather appeared to reply as to some in- 
terrogatory of her own ; in the midst of one occupation, 
she would start up to another ; leave that, in turn, un- 
done, and sit down in a silence lasting for hours. Her 
voice, in singing, was exquisitely melodious ; she had, too, 
an intuitive talent for painting; and she read all the books 
that came in her way with an avidity that bespoke at once 
the restlessness and the genius of her mind. 

This description of Lucilla must, I need scarcely repeat, 
be considered as applicable to her at some years distant 
from the time in which the young Englishman first at- 
tracted her childish but ardent imagination. To her, that 
mce, with its regular and harmonious features, its golden 
hair, and soft, shy, melancholy aspect, seemed as belonging 
to a higher and brighter order of beings than those who, 


188 


dODOLPHIN. 


with exaggerated lineaments and swarthy hues, surrounded 
and displeased her. She took a strange and thrilling pleas- 
ure in creeping to his side, and looking up, when unob- 
served, at the countenance which, in his absence, she loved 
to imitate, with her pencil, by day, and to recall in her 
dreams at night. But she seldom spoke to him, and she 
shrank, covered with painful blushes, from his arms, when- 
ever he attempted to bestow on her those caresses which 
children are wont to claim as an attention. Once, how- 
ever, she summoned courage to ask him to teach her Eng- 
lish, and he complied. She learned that language with 
surprising facility; and as Yolktman loved its sound, she 
grew familiar with its difficulties by always addressing her 
father in a tongue which became inexpressibly dear to her. 
And the young stranger delighted to hear that soft and 
melodious voice, with its trembling, Italian accent, make 
music from the nervous and masculine language of his na- 
tive land. Scarce accountably to himself, a certain tender 
and peculiar interest in the fortunes of this singular and 
bewitching child grew up within him — peculiar and not 
easily accounted for, in that it was not wholly the interest 
we feel in an engaging child, and yet was of no more 
interested nor sinister order. Were there truth in the 
science of the stars, I should say that they had told him 
her fate was to have affinity with his ; and with that per- 
suasion, something mysterious, and more than ordinarily 
tender, entered into the affection he felt for the daughter 
of his friend. 

Ihe Englishman was himself of a romantic character 


GODOLPHIN. 


189 


He had been self-taught ; and his studies, irregular though 
often deep, had given directions to his intellect frequently 
enthusiastic and unsound. His imagination preponderated 
over his judgment ; and any pursuit that attracted his im- 
agination won his entire devotion, until his natural sa- 
gacity proved it deceitful. If at times, living as he did in 
that daily world which so sharpens our common sense, he 
smiled at the persevering fervor of the astrologer, he more 
often shared it; and he became his pupil in “the poetry 
of heaven,” with a secret but deep belief in the mysteries 
cultivated by his master. Carrying the delusion to its height, 
I fear that the enthusiasts entered upon ground still more 
shadowy and benighted ; — the old secrets of the alchemist, 
and perhaps even of those arcana yet more gloomy and 
less rational, were subjected to their serious contempla- 
tion ; and night after night, they delivered themselves 
wholly up to that fearful and charmed fascination which 
the desire and effort to overleap our mortal boundaries 
produce even in the hardest and best regulated minds. The 
train of thought so long nursed by the abstruse and soli- 
tary Dane was, perhaps, a better apology for the weakness 
of credulity, than the youth and wandering fancy of the 
Englishman/ But the scene around, not alluring to the one, 
fed to overflowing the romantic aspirations of the other. 

On his way home, as the stars (which night had been 
spent in reading) began to wink and fade, the Englishman 
crossed the haunted Almo, renowned of yore for its heal- 
ing virtues, and in whose stream the far-famed Simula - 
arum (the image of Cybele), which fell from heaven, was 


190 


GODOLPHIN. 


wont to be laved with every coming spring ; and around 
his steps, till he gained his home, were the relics and 
monuments of that superstition which sheds so much 
beauty over all that, in harsh reasoning, it may be said 
to degrade ; so that his mind, always peculiarly alive to 
external impressions, was girt, as it were, with an atmos- 
phere favorable both to the lofty speculation and the 
graceful credulities of romance. 

The Englishman remained at Rome, with slight intervals 
of absence, for nearly three years. On the night before 
the day in which he received intelligence of an event that 
recalled him to his native country, he repaired at an hour 
accidentally later than usual to the astrologer’s abode. 


CHAPTER XXYII. 


A CONVERSATION LITTLE APPERTAINING TO THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
TURY RESEARCHES INTO HUMAN PATE — THE PREDICTION. 

On entering the apartment, he found Lucilla seated on 
a low stool beside the astrologer. She looked up when 
she heard his footstep ; but her countenance seemed so 
dejected, that he turned involuntarily to that of Volktman 
for explanation. Yolktman met his gaze with a steadfast 
and mournful aspect. 

“ What has happened?” asked the Englishman; “you 
seem sad, — you do not greet me as usual.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


191 


“I have been with the stars,” replied the visionary. 

" They seem but poor company,” rejoined the English- 
man ; “ and do not appear to have much heightened your 
spirits.” 

“Jest not, my friend,” said Volktman; “it was for the 
loss of thee that I looked sorrowful. I perceive that thou 
wilt take a journey soon, and that it will be of no pleasant 
nature.” 

“Indeed!” answered the Englishman, smilingly. “I 
ask leave to question the fact: you know better than any 
man, how often, through an error in our calculations, 
through haste, even through an overattention, astrolog- 
ical predictions are exposed to falsification ; and at present 
I foresee so little chance of my quitting Rome, that I pre- 
fer the earthly probabilities to the celestial.” 

“ My schemes are just, and the Heavens wrote their 
decrees in their clearest language,” answered the astrol- 
oger. “Thou art on the eve of quitting Rome.” 

“ On what occasion ?” 

The astrologer hesitated — the young visitor pressed the 
question. 

“The lord of the fourth house,” said Yolktman, reluct- 
antly, “is located in the eleventh house. Thou knowest 
to whom the position portends disaster.” 

“ My father!” said the Englishman anxiously, and turn- 
ing pale; “I think that position would relate to him. 

“It doth,” said the astrologer, slowly. 

“ Impossible ! I heard from him to-day ; he is well — let 
me see the figures.” 


192 


GODOLPHIN. 


The young man looked over the mystic hieroglyphics of 
the art, inscribed on a paper that was placed before the 
visionary, with deep and scrutinizing attention. Without 
bewildering the reader with those words and figures of 
weird sound and import which perplex the uninitiated and 
entangle the disciple of astrology, I shall merely observe 
that there^was one point in which the judgment appeared 
to admit doubt as to the signification. The Englishman 
insisted on the doubt ; and a very learned and edifying 
debate was carried on between pupil and master, in the 
heat of which all recollection of the point in dispute (as is 
usual in such cases) evaporated. 

41 1 know not how it is,” said the Englishman, “ that I 
should give any credence to a faith which (craving your 
forgiveness) most men out of Bedlam concur, at this day, 
in condemning as wholly idle and absurd. For it may be 
presumed, that men only incline to some unpopular theory 
in proportion as it flatters or favors them ; and as for this 
theory of yours— of ours, if you will— it has foretold me 
nothing but misfortune.” 

“ Thy horoscope,” replied the astrologer, “is indeed 
singular and ominous: but, like my daughter, the exact 
minute (withip almost a whole hour) of thy birth seems 
unknown; and, however ingeniously we, following the 
ancients, have contrived means for correcting nativities, 
our predictions (so long as the exact period of birth is not 
ascertained) remain, in my mind, always liable to some 
uncertainty. Indeed, the surest method of reducing the 
supposed time to the true— that of ‘Accidents,’ is but par- 


G0D0LPHIN. 


193 


tially given, as in thy case ; for, with a negligence that 
cannot be too severely blamed or too deeply lamented, 
thou hast omitted to mark down, or remember, the days 
on which accidents — fevers, broken limbs, etc. — occurred 
to thee ; and this omission leaves a cloud over the bright 
chapters of fate ” 

“ Which, ” interrupted the young man, “is so much the 
happier for me, in that it allows me some loophole for 
ho>pe.” 

“Yet,” renewed the astrologer, as if resolved to deny 
his friend any consolation, “thy character, and the bias of 
thy habits as well as the peculiarities of thy person — nay, 
even the moles upon thy skin — accord with thy proposed 
horoscope.” 

“Be it so!” said the Englishman, gayly. “You grant 
me, at least, the fairest of earthly gifts — the happiness of 
pleasing that sex which alone sweetens our human misfor- 
tunes. That gift I would sooner have, even accompanied 
as it is, than all the benign influences without it.” 

“Yet,” said the astrologer, “shalt thou even there be 
met with affliction ; for Saturn had the power to thwart 
the star Venus, that was disposed to favor thee, and evil 
may be the result of the love thou inspirest. There is one 
thing remarkable in our science, which is especially worthy 
of notice in thy lot. The ancients, unacquainted with the 
star of Herschel, seem also scarcely acquainted with the 
character which the influence of that wayward and melan- 
choly orb creates. Thus, the aspect of Herschel neutral- 
izes, in great measure, the boldness, and ambition, and 

17 N 


194 


GODOLPHIN. 


pride of heart, thou wouldst otherwise have drawn from 
the felicitous configuration of the stars around the Moon 
and Mercury at thy birth. That yearning for something 
beyond the narrow bounds of the world, that love for 
reverie, that passionate romance, yea, thy very leaning, 
despite thy worldly sense, to these occult and starry mys- 
teries ; — all are bestowed on thee by this new and poten- 
tial planet.” 

“And hence, I suppose,” said the Englishman, interested 
(as the astrologer had declared) in spite of himself, “hence 
that opposition, in my nature, of the worldly and romantic; 
hence with you, I am the dreaming enthusiast ; but the 
instant I regain the living and motley crowd, I shake off 
the influence with ease, and become the gay pursuer of 
social pleasures.” 

“ Never at heart gay,” muttered the astrologer ; “ Saturn 
and Herschel make not sincere mirth-makers.” The Eng- 
lishman did not hear, or seem to hear him. 

“No,” resumed the young man, musingly, “no! it is 
true that there is some counteraction of what, at times, I 
should have called my natural bent. Thus, I am bold 
enough, and covetous of knowledge, and not deaf to 
vanity ; and yet I have no ambition. The desire to rise 
seems to me wholly unalluring: I scorn and contemn it as 
a weakness. But what matters it? so much the happier 
for me if, as you predict, my life be short. But how, if so 
unambitious and so quiet of habit, how can I imagine that 
my death will be violent as well as premature ?” 

It was as he spoke that the young Lucilla, who, with 


GODOLPHIN. 


195 


fixed eyes and lips apart, had been drinking in their con- 
versation, suddenly rose and left the room. They were 
used to her comings in and her goings out without cause 
or speech, and continued their conversation. 

“Alas I” said the visionary ; “can tranquillity of life, or 
care, or prudence, preserve us from our destiny ? No sign 
is more deadly, whether by accident or murder, than that 
which couples Hyleg with Orion and Saturn. Yet, thou 
mayest pass the year in which that danger is foretold thee ; 
and, beyond that time, peace, honor, and good fortune 
await thee. Better to have the menace of ill in early life 
than in its decline. Youth bears up against misfortune ; 
but it withers the heart and crushes the soul of age !” 

“After all,” said the young guest, haughtily, •“ we must 
do our best to contradict the starry evils by our own inter- 
nal philosophy. We can make ourselves independent of 
fate; that independence is better than prosperity !” Then, 
changing his tone, he added, — “ But you imagine that, by 
the power of other arts, we may control and counteract 
the prophecies of the stars ” 

“ How meanest thou ?” said the astrologer, hastily. 
“Thou dost not suppose that alchemy, which is the ser 
vant of the heavenly host, is their opponent?” 

“ Nay,” answered the disciple ; “ but you allow that we 
may be enabled to ward off evils, and to cure diseases, 
otherwise fatal to us, by the gift of Uriel and the charm of 
the Cabala ?” 

“ Surely,” replied the visionary; “but then, I opine that 
the discovery of these precious secrets was foretold to us 


196 


GODOLPHIN. 


by the Omniscient Book at our nativity ; and, therefor®, 
though the menace of evils be held out to us, so also is the 
probability of their correction or our escape. And I must 
own,” pursued the enthusiast, “that, to me, the very cul- 
ture of those divine arts hath given a consolation amid the 
evils to which I have been fated ; so true seems it, that it 
is not in the outer nature, in the great elements, and in 
the bowels of the earth, but also within ourselves, that we 
must look for the preparations whereby we are to achieve 
the wisdom of Zoroaster and Hermes. We must abstract 
ourselves from passion and earthly desires. Lapped in a 
celestial reverie, we must work out, by contemplation, the 
essence from the matter of things : nor can we dart into 
the soul of the Mystic World until we ourselves have for- 
gotten the body; and, by fast, by purity, and by thought 
have become, in the flesh itself, a living soul.” 

Much more, and with an equal wildness of metaphysical 
eloquence, did the astrologer declare in praise of those 
arts condemned by the old church ; and it doth indeed 
appear, from reference to the numerous works of the alche- 
mists and magians yet extant, somewhat hastily and un- 
justly. For those books all unite in dwelling on the 
necessity of virtue, subdued passions, and a clear mind, in 
order to become a fortunate and accomplished cabalist — a 
precept, by-the-way, not without its policy ; for, if the 
disciple failed, the failure might be attributed to his own 
fleshly imperfections, not to any deficiency in the truth of 
the science. 

The young man listened to the visionary with an earnest 


GODOLPIIIN. 


197 


and fascinated attention. Independent of the dark interest 
always attached to discourses of supernatural things, more 
especially, we must allow, in the mouth of a fervent and 
rapt believer, there was that in the language and very 
person of the astrologer which inexpressibly enhanced the 
effect of the theme. Like most men acquainted with the 
literature of a country, but not accustomed to daily con- 
versation with its natives, the English words and fashion 
of periods that occurred to Yolktman were rather those 
used in books than in colloquy ; and a certain solemnity 
and slowness of tone, accompanied with the frequent, al- 
most constant use of the pronoun singular — the thou and 
the thee — gave a strangeness and unfamiliar majesty to his 
dialect that suited well with the subjects on which he so 
loved to dwell. He himself was lean, gaunt, and wan; his 
cheeks were drawn and hollow ; and thin locks, prematurely 
bleached to gray, fell in disorder round high, bare temples, 
in which the thought that is not of this world had paled 
the hue and furrowed the surface ! But, as may be noted 
in many imaginative men, the life that seemed faint and 
chill in the rest of the frame, collected itself, as in a citadel, 
within the eye. Bright, wild, and deep, the expression of 
those blue large orbs told the intense enthusiasm of the 
mind within; and, even somewhat thrillingly, communi- 
cated a part of that emotion to those on whom they dwelt. 
No painter could have devised, nor even Yolktman him- 
self, in the fullness of his northern fantasy, have sculp- 
tured forth, a better image of those pale and unearthly 
students who, in the darker ages, applied life and learning 
17 * 


198 


OODOLPHIN. 


to one unhallowed vigil, the Hermes or the Gebir of the 
alchemist’s empty science — dreamers, and the martyrs of 
their dreams. 

In the discussion of mysteries which to detail would 
only weary, while it perplexed the reader, the enthusiasts 
passed the greater portion of the night; and when at 
length the Englishman rose to depart, it cannot be denied 
that a solemn and boding emotion agitated his breast. 

“We have talked,” said he, attempting a smile, “of 
things above this nether life ; and here we are lost, uncer- 
tain. On one thing, however, we can decide ; life itself is 
encompassed with gloom ; sorrow and anxiety await even 
those upon whom the stars shed their most golden influ- 
ence. We know not one day what the next shall bring ! 
— no ; I repeat it ; no — in spite of your scheme, and your 
ephemeris, and your election of happy moments. But 
come what will, Yolktman, come all that you foretell to 
me ; crosses in my love, disappointment in my life, melan- 
choly in my blood, and a violent death in the very flush of 
my manhood, — me at least, me ! my soul, my heart, my 
better part, you shall never cast down, nor darken, nor 
deject. I move in a certain and serene circle ; ambition 
cannot tempt me above it, nor misfortune cast me below J” 

Yolktman looked at the speaker with surprise and ad- 
miration ; the enthusiasm of a brave mind is the only fire 
broader and brighter than that of a fanatical one. 

“Alas! my young friend,” he said, as he clasped the 
hand of his guest ; “ I would to Heaven that my predic- 
tions may be wrong ; often and often they have been 


0ODOLPII1N. 


199 


erroneous,” added he, bowing his head humbly; “they 
may be so in their reference to thee. So young, so bril- 
liant, so beautiful too ; so brave, yet so romantic of heart, 

I feel for all that may happen to thee — ay, far, far more 
deeply than aught which may be fated to myself; for I am 
an old man now, and long inured to disappointment ; all 
the greenness of my life is gone : even could I attain to 
the Grand Secret, the knowledge methinks would be too 
late. And, at my birth, my lot was portioned out unto 
me in characters so clear, that, while I have had time to 
acquiesce in it, I have had no hope to correct and change 
it. For Jupiter in Cancer, removed from the Ascendant, 
and not impedited of any other star, betokened me indeed 
some expertness in science, but a life of seclusion, and one 
that should bring not forth the fruits that its labor de- 
served. But there is so much in thy fate that ought to be 
bright and glorious, that it will be no common destiny 
marred, should the evil influences and the ominous seasons 
prevail against thee. But thou speakest boldly boldly, 
and as one of a high soul, though it be sometimes clouded 
and led astray. And I, therefore, again and again impress 
upon thee, it is from thine own self , thine own character, 
thine own habits, that all evil, save that of death, will come. 
Wear, then, I implore thee, wear in thy memory, as a jewel, 
the first great maxim of alchemist and magian ‘ Search 

THYSELF CORRECT THYSELF — SUBDUE THYSELF ;’ it is Only 

through the lamp of crystal that the light will shine duly 
out.” 

" It is more likely that the stars should err,” returned 


200 


GODOLPETIN. 


the Englishman, “than that the human heart should cor- 
rect itself of error: adieu!” 

He left the room, and proceeded along a passage that 
led to the outer door. Ere he reached it, another door 
opened suddenly, and the face of Lucilla broke forth upon 
him. She held a light in her hand ; and as she gazed on 
the Englishman, he saw that her face was very pale, and 
that she had been weeping. She looked at him long and 
earnestly, and the look affected him strangely; he broke 
silence, which at first it appeared to him difficult to do. 

“ Good night, my pretty friend,” said he: “shall I bring 
you some flowers to-morrow ?” 

Lucilla burst into a wild eldritch laugh ; and abruptly 
closing the door, left him iu darkness. 

The cool air of the breaking dawn came freshly to the 
cheek of our countryman; yet, still, an unpleasant and 
heavy sensation sat at his heart. His nerves, previously 
weakened by his long commune with the visionary, and the 
effect it had produced, yet tingled and thrilled with the 
abrupt laugh and meaning countenance of that strange 
girl, who differed so widely from all' others of her years. 
The stars were growing pale and ghostly, and there was a 
mournful and dim haze around the moon. 

“Ye look ominously upon me,” said he, half aloud, as 
his eyes fixed their gaze above ; and the excitement of his 
spirit spread to his language : “ye on whom, if our lore 
be faithful, the Most High hath written the letters of our 
mortal doom. And if ye rule the tides of the great deep, 
and the changes of the rolling year, what is there out of 


GODOLPHIN. 


20l 


reason or nature in our belief that ye hold the same sym- 
pathetic and unseen influence over the blood and heart, 
which are the character (and the character makes the con- 
duct) of man ?” Pursuing his soliloquy of thought, and 
finding reasons for a credulity that afforded to him but 
little cause for pleasure or hope, the Englishman tock his 
way to St. Sebastian’s gate. 

There was, in truth, much in the traveler’s character 
that corresponded with that which was attributed and 
destined to one to whom the heavens had given a horo- 
scope answering to his own ; and it was this conviction, 
rather than any accidental coincidence in events, which 
had first led him to pore with a deep attention over the 
vain but imposing prophecies of judicial astrology. Pos- 
sessed of all the powers that enable men to rise ; ardent, 
yet ordinarily shrewd ; eloquent, witty, brave ; and, though 
not what may be termed versatile, possessing that rare art 
of concentrating the faculties which enables the possessor 
rapidly and thoroughly to master whatsoever once arrests 
the attention, he yet despised all that would have brought 
these endowments into full and legitimate display. He 
lived only for enjoyment. A passionate lover of women, 
music, letters, and the arts, it was society, not the world, 
which made the sphere and end of his existence. Yet was 
he no vulgar and commonplace epicurean ; he lived for 
eujoyment ; but that enjoyment was mainly formed from 
elements wearisome to more ordinary natures. Reverie, 
contemplation, loneliness, were at times dearer to him than 

the softer and more Aristippean delights. His energies 
17 * 


202 


GODOLPHIN. 


were called forth in society, but he was scarcely social. 
Trained from his early boyhood to solitude, he was seldom 
weary of being alone. He sought the crowd, not to amuse 
himself, but to observe others. The world to him was less 
as a theater on which he was to play a part, than as a 
book in which he loved to decipher the enigmas of wisdom. 
He observed all that passed around him. No sprightly 
cavalier at any time, the charm that he exercised at will 
over bis companions was that of softness, not vivacity. 
But amid that silken blandness of demeanor, the lynx eye 
of Remark never slept. He penetrated character at a 
glace, but he seldom made use of his knowledge. He 
found a pleasure in reading men, but a fatigue in govern- 
ing them. And thus, consummately skilled as he was in 
the science du monde , he often allowed himself to appear 
ignorant of its practice. Forming in his mind a beau 
ideal of friendship and of love, he never found enough in 
the realities long to engage his affection. Thus, with 
women he was considered fickle, and with men he had no 
intimate companionship. This trait of character is com- 
mon with persons of genius ; and, owing to too large an 
overflow of heart, they are frequently considered heartless. 
There is always, however, danger that a character of this 
kind should become with years what it seems ; what it 
soon learns to despise. Nothing steels the affections like 
contempt. 

The next morning an express from England reached 
the young traveler. His father was dangerously ill ; nor 
was it expected that the utmost diligence would enable 


GODOLPHIN. 


203 


the young man to receive his last blessing. The English- 
man, appalled and terror-stricken, recalled his interview 
with the astrologer. Nothing so effectually dismays us, as 
to feel a confirmation of some idea of supernatural dread 
that has already found entrance within our reason ; and of 
all supernatural belief, that of being compelled by a pre- 
decree, and thus being the mere tools and puppets of a 
dark and relentless fate, seems the most fraught at once 
with abasement and with horror. 

The Englishman left Rome that morning, and sent only 
a verbal and hasty message to the astrologer, announcing 
the cause of his departure. Yolktman was a man of excel- 
lent heart : but one would scarcely like to inquire, whether 
exultation at the triumph of his prediction was not with 
him a far more powerful sentiment than grief at the mis- 
fortune to his friend 1 


CHAPTER XXYIII. 

THE YOUTH OF LUCILLA VOLKTMAN— A MYSTERIOUS CONVERSATION 
— THE RETURN OF ONE UNLOOKED FOR. 

Time went slowly on, and Lucilla grew up in beauty. 
The stranger traits of her character increased in strength, 
but perhaps in the natural bashfulness of maidenhood they 
became more latent. At the age of fifteen, her elastic 
shape had grown round and full, and the wild girl had 


204 


GODOLPHIN. 


already ripened to the woman. An expression of thought, 
when the play of her features was in repose, that dwelt 
upon her lip and forehead, gave her the appearance of 
being two or three years older than she was ; but again, 
when her natural vivacity returned, — when the clear and 
buoyant music of her gay. laugh rang out, or when the 
cool air and bright sky of morning sent the blood to her 
cheek and the zephyr to her step, — her face became as the 
face of childhood, and contrasted with a singular and 
dangerous loveliness the rich development of her form. 

And still was Lucilla Yolktman a stranger to all that 
savored of the world ; the company of others of her sex 
and age never drew forth her emotions from their resting- 
place : 

“And Nature said, a lovelier flower 
On earth was never sown: 
***** 

Myself will to my darling be 
Both law and impulse ; and with me 
The girl, in rock and plain, 

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower 
Shall feel an overseeing power 
To kindle or restrain. 

The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her; and she shall lean her ear 
In many a secret place ; 

Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 

And beauty, born of murmuring sound, 

Shall pass into her face.” 

Wordsworth. 

These lines have occurred to me again and again, as I 
looked on the face of her to whom I have applied them. 


GOLOLPHIN. 


205 


And, remembering as I do its radiance arid glory in her 
happier moments, I can scarcely persuade myself to notice 
the faults and heats of temper which at times dashed away 
all its luster and gladness. Unrestrained and fervid, she 
gave way to the irritation or grief of the moment with a 
violence that would have terrified any one who beheld her 
at such times. But it rarely happened that the scene had 
its witness even in her father, for she fled to the loneliest 
spots she could find to indulge these emotions ; and per- 
haps even the agony they occasioned — an agony convuls- 
ing the heart and whole of her impassioned frame — took a 
sort of luxury from the solitary and unchecked nature of 
its indulgence. 

Volktman continued his pursuits with an ardor that in- 
creased — as do all species of monomania — with increasing 
years ; and in the accidental truth of some of his predic- 
tions, he forgot the erroneous result of the rest. He cor- 
responded at times with the Englishman, who, after a short 
sojourn in England, had returned to the Continent, and 
was now making a prolonged tour through its northern 
capitals. 

Very different, indeed, from the astrologer’s occupations 
were those of the wanderer ; and time, dissipation, and a 
maturer intellect had cured the latter of his boyish tend- 
ency to studies so idle and so vain. Yet he always looked 
back with an undefined and unconquered interest to the 
period of his acquaintance with the astrologer; to their 
long and thrilling watches in the night season ; to tba 
contagious fervor of faith breathing from the visionary ; 

18 


206 


GODOLPHIN. 


his dark and restless excursions into that remote science 
associated with the legends of eldest time, and of 

“The crew, who, under names of old renown, 

Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train, 

With monstrous shapes and sorceries, abused 
Fanatic Egypt and her priests.’ 

One night, four years after the last scene we have de- 
scribed in the astrologer’s house, Yolktman was sitting 
alone in his favorite room. Before him was a calculation 
on which the ink was scarcely dry. His face leant on his 
breast, and he seemed buried in thought. His health had 
been of late gradually declining ; and it might be seen 
upon his worn brow and attenuated frame, that death was 
already preparing to withdraw the visionary from a world 
whose substantial enjoyments he had so sparingly tasted. 

Lucilla had been banished from his chamber during the 
day. She now knew that his occupation was over, and 
entered the room with his evening repast ; that frugal 
meal, common with the Italians — the polenta { made of 
Indian-corn), the bread and the fruits, which, after the 
fashion of students, he devoured unconsciously, and would 
not have remembered one hour after whether or not it had 
been tasted ! 

“ Sit thee down, child,” said he to Lucilla, kindly ; — 
" sit thee down.” 

Lucilla obeyed, and took her seat upon the very stool 
on which she had been seated the last night on which the 
Englishman had seen her. 

“I have been thinking,” said Yolktman, as he placed 


GODOLPIIIN. 


201 


bis band on bis daughter’s head, “ that I shall soon leave 
thee ; and I should like to see thee protected by another 
before my own departure.” 

“Ah, father,” said Lucilla, as the tears rushed to her 
eyes, “ do not talk thus 1 indeed, indeed, you must not in- 
dulge in this perpetual gloom and seclusion of life. You 
promised to take me with you, some day this week, to the 
Vatican. Do let it be to-morrow; the weather has been 
so fine lately ; and who knows how long it may last ?” 

“True,” said Volktman ; “and to-morrow will not, I 
think, be unfavorable to our stirring abroad, for the moon 
will be of the same age as at my birth — an accident that 
thou wilt note, my child, to be especially auspicious toward 
any enterprise.” 

The poor astrologer so rarely stirred from his home, 
that he did well to consider a walk of a mile or two in 
the light of an enterprise. — “I have wished,” continued 
be, after a pause, “that 1 might see our English friend 
once more — that is, ere long. For, to tell thee the truth^ 
Lucilla, certain events happening unto him do, strangely 
enough, occur about the same time as that in which events, 
equally boding, will befall thee. This coincidence it was 
which contributed to make me assume so warm an interest 
in the lot of a stranger. I would I might see him soon!” 

Lucilla’s beautiful breast heaved, and her face was 
covered with blushes : these were symptoms of a disorder 
‘that never occurred to the recluse. 

“Thou rememberest the foreigner?” asked Volktman, 
after a pause. 


208 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ Yes,” said Lucilla, half inaudibly. 

“ I have not heard from him of late : I will make quefr 
tion concerning him ere the cock crow.” 

“Nay, my father 1” said Lucilla, quickly: “not to- 
night: you want rest, your eyes are heavy.” 

“Girl,” said the mystic, “the soul sleepeth not, nor 
wanteth sleep : even as the stars, to which (as the Arabian 
saith) there is also a soul, wherewith an intent passion of 
our own doth make an union — so that we, by an unslum- 
bering diligence, do constitute ourselves a part of the 
heaven itself !— even, I say, as the stars may vanish from 
the human eye, nor be seen in the common day— though 
all the while their course is stopped not, nor their voices 

dumb even so doth the soul of man retire, as it were, 

into a seeming sleep and torpor, yet it worketh all the 
same — and perhaps with a less impeded power, in that it 
is more free from common obstruction and trivial hinder- 
ance. And if I purpose to confer this night with the 
' Intelligence ’ that ruleth earth and earth’s beings, con- 
cerning this stranger, it will not be by the vigil and the 
scheme, but by the very sleep which thou imaginest, in thy 
mental darkness, would deprive me of the resources of my 
art.” 

“ Can you really, then, my father,” said Lucilla, in a 
tone half anxious, half timid,— “ can you really, at will, 
conjure up in your dreams the persons you wish to see ; 
or draw, from sleep, any oracle concerning their present 
state ?” 

“Of a surety,” answered the astrologer; “it is one of 


GODOLPHIN 


209 


the great — though not perchance the most gifted — of our 
endowments.” 

u Can you teach the method ?” asked Lucilla, gravely. 

“All that relates to the art I can,” rejoined the mystic: 
“but the chief and main power rests with thyself. For. 
know, my daughter, that one who seeks the wisdom that is 
above the earth, must cultivate and excite, with long labor 
and deep thought, his least earthly faculty.” 

Here the visionary, observing that the countenance of 
Lucilla was stamped with a fixed attention, which she did 
not often bestow upon his metaphysical exordiums, paused 
for a moment ; and then pursued the theme with the tone 
of one desirous of making himself at once as clear and 
impressive as the nature of an abstruse science would 
allow. 

“ There are two things in the outer creation, which, ac- 
cording to the great Hermes, suffice for the operation of 
all that is wonderful and glorious — Fire and Earth. Even 
so, my child, there are in the human mind two powers that 
affect all of which our nature is capable — reason and 
imagination. Now mankind — less wise in themselves 
than in the outer world — have cultivated, for the most 
part, but one of these faculties ; and that, the inferior and 
more passive, reason. They have tilled the earth of the 
human heart, but suffered its fire to remain dormant, or 
waste itself in chance and frivolous directions. Hence 
the insufficiency of human knowledge. Inventions founded 
only on reason move within a circle from which their escape 
is momentary and trivial. When some few, endowed with 
18 * 


0 


210 


GODOLPHIN. 


a juster instinct, have had recourse to the diviner element, 
imagination, thou wilt observe, that they have used it 
only in the service of the lighter arts, and those chiefly 
disconnected from reason. Such is poetry, and music, 
and other delicious fabrications of genius, that amuse men, 
soften men, but advance them not. They have — with but 
rare exceptions — left this glorious and winged faculty 
utterly passive in the service of Philosophy. There, rea- 
son alone has been admitted, and imagination hath been 
carefully banished, as an erratic and deceitful meteor. 
Now mark me, child : I, noting this our error in early 
youth, did resolve to see what might be effected by the 
culture of this renounced and maltreated element; and 
finding, as I proceeded in the studies that grew from this 
desire, by the occult yet guiding writings of the great 
philosophers of old— that they had forestalled me in this 
discovery, I resolved to learn, from their experience, by 
what means the imagination is best fostered, and, as it 
were, sublimed. 

“Anxiously following their precepts — the truth of which 
soon appeared — I found that solitude, fast, intense reverie 
upon the one theme on which we desired knowledge, were 
the true elements and purifiers of this glorious faculty. It 
was by these means, and by this power, that men so far 
behind us in lesser lore, achieved, on the mooned plains of 
Chaldea and by the dark waters of Egypt, their penetra- 
tion into the womb of Event; — by these means, and this 
power, the solitaries of the Gothic time not only attained 
to the most intricate arcana of the stars, but to the empire 


GODOLPHIN. 


211 


of the spirits about, above, and beneath the earth : a 
power, indeed, disputed by the presumptuous sophists of 
the present time, but of which their writings yet contain 
ample proof. Nay, by the constant feeding, and impress- 
ing, and moulding, and refining, and heightening the im- 
aginative power, I do conceive that even the false prophets 
and the evil practitioners of the blacker cabala clomb unto 
the power seemingly inconceivable — the power of accom- 
plishing miracles and prodigies, that to appearance belie, 
but in truth verify, the course of nature. By this spirit 
within the flesh, we grow from flesh, and may see, and at 
length invoke the souls of the dead, and receive warnings, 
and hear omens, and girdle our sleep with dreams. 

“ Not unto me,” continued the cabalist, in a lowlier 
tone, “have been vouchsafed all these gifts; for I began 
the art when the first fire of youth was dim within me ; 
and it was therefore with duller and already earth-clogged 
pinions that I sought to rise. Something, however, I have 
won as a recompense for austere abstinence and much 
labor ; and this power over the laud of dreams is at least 
within my command.” 

“ Then,” said Lucilla, in a disappointed tone, “it is only 
by a long course of indulgence to the fervor of the imag- 
ination, and not by spell or charm, that one can gain a 
similar power ?” 

“Not wholly so, my daughter,” replied the mystic; 
“ they who do so excite, and have so raised the diviner 
faculty, can alone possess the certain and invariable 
power over dreams, even without charms and talismans j 


212 


GODOLPHIN. 


but the most dull or idle may hope to do so with just con- 
fidence (though not certainty) by help of skill, and by 
directing the full force of their half-roused fancy toward 
the person or object they wish to see reflected in the glass 
of Sleep.” 

‘‘And what means should the uninitiated employ ?” asked 
Lucilla, in a tone betokening her interest. 

“ I will tell thee,” answered the astrologer. “ Thou 
must inscribe on a white parchment an image of the sun.” 

“As how?” — interrupted Lucilla. 

“Thus!” said the astrologer, drawing from among his 
papers one inscribed with the figure of a man asleep on 
the bosom of an angel. “ This was made at the potential 
and appointed time, when the sun was in the Ninth of the 
Celestial Houses, and the Lion shook his bright mane as 
he ascended the blue mount. Observe, that on the figure 
must be written thy desire — the name of the person thou 
wishest to see, or the thing thou wouldst have foreshown : 
then, having prepared and brought the mind to a faith in 
the effect, — for, without faith, the imagination lies inert 
and lifeless, — this image will be placed under the head of 
the invoker, and when the moon goeth through the sign 
which was in the Ninth House of his nativity, the Dream 
will glide into him, and his soul walk with the spirit of the 
vision.” 

“ Give me the image,” said Lucilla, eagerly. 

The mystic hesitated. — “No, Lucilla,” said he, at length ; 
“ no, it is a dark and comfortless path, that of prescience 
and unearthly knowledge, save to the few that walk it with 


GODOLPHIN. 


213 


a gifted light and a fearless soul. It is not for women or 
children — nay, for few amongst men : it withers up the sap 
of life, and makes the hair gray before its time. No, no ; 
take the broad sunshine, and the brief but sweet flowers of 
earth ; they are better for thee, my child, and for thy years, 
than the fever and hope of the night-dream, and the plan- 
etary influence.” 

So saying, the astrologer replaced the image within the 
leaves of one of his books ; and with a prudence not com- 
mon to him, thrust the volume into a drawer, which he 
loqked. The fair face of Lucilla became clouded, but the 
ill health of her father imposed a restraint on her wild 
temper 

Just at that moment the door slowly opened, and the 
Englishman stood before the daughter and sire. They 
did not note him at first. The solitary servant of che sage 
had admitted him ; he had proceeded, without ceremony, 
to the well-remembered apartment. 

As he now stood gazing on the pair, he observed, with 
an inward smile, how exactly their present attitudes (as 
•veil as the old aspect of the scene) resembled those in 
which he had broken upon them on the last evening he 
had visited that chamber : the father bending over the old, 
worn, quaint table ; and the daughter seated beside him 
on the same low stool. The character of their counte- 
nances struck him, too, as Wearing the same ominous ex- 
pression as when those countenances had chilled him on 
that evening. For Yolktman’s features were impressed 
with the sadness that breathed from, and caused, his pro« 


214 


GODOLPHIN. 


hibition to his daughter; and that prohibition had given 
to her features an abstraction and shadow, similar to the 
dejection they had worn on the night we recur to. 

This remembered coincidence did not cheer the spirits 
of the young traveler; he muttered to himself; and then, 
as if anxious to break the silence, moved forward with a 
heavy step. 

Yolktman started at the sound ; and looking up, seemed 
literally electrified by this sudden apparition of one whom 
he had so lately expressed his desire to see. His lips 
muttered the intruder’s name, one well known to the reader 
(it was the name of Godolphin), and then closed; but 
Lucilla sprang from her seat, and, clasping her hands joy- 
ously together, darted forward till she came within a foot 
of the unexpected visitor. There, she abruptly arrested 
herself, blushed deeply; and stood before him, humbled, 
agitated, but all vivid with delight. 

“What! is this Lucilla?” said Godolphin, admiringly: 
“ how beautiful she is grown !” and advancing, he saluted, 
with a light and fraternal kiss, her girlish and damask 
cheek : then, without heeding her confusion, he turned to 
the astrologer, who by this time had a little recovered 
from his amaze. 


GODOLPHIN 


SJ6 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE EFFECT OF YEARS AND EXPERIENCE — THE ITALIAN CHARACTER. 

Godolphin now came almost daily to the astrologer’s 
abode. He was shocked to perceive the physical altera- 
tion four years had wrought in his singular friend ; and, 
with the warmth of a heart naturally kind, he sought to 
contribute to the comfort and enjoyment of a life that was 
evidently drawing to a close. 

Godolphin’s company seemed to give Yolktman a pleas- 
ure which nothing else could afford him. He loved to 
converse on the various incidents that had occurred to 
each since they met ; and, in whatsoever Godolphin com- 
municated to him, the mystic sought to impress upon his 
friend’s attention the fulfillment of an astrological pre- 
diction. 

Godolphin, though no longer impressed with a belief in 
the visionary’s science, did not affect to combat his asser- 
tions. He had not, in his progress through life, found 
much to shake his habitual indolence in ordinary affairs ; 
and it was no easy matter to provoke one of his quiet 
temper and self-indulging wisdom into conversational dis- 
pute. Besides, who argues with fanaticism ? 

Since the young idealist had left England, the elements 


216 


GC DOLPHIN. 


of his character had been slowly performing the ordination 
of time, and working their due change in its general 
aspect. The warm fountains of youth flowed not so freely 
as before: the selfishness that always comes, sooner or 
later, to solitary men of the w'orld, had gradually mingled 
itself with all the channels of his heart. The brooding 
and thoughtful disposition of his faculties having turned 
from romance to what he deemed philosophy, that which 
once was enthusiasm had hardened into wisdom. He 
neither hated men, nor loved them with a sanguine phi- 
lanthropy ; he viewed them with cool and discerning eyes. 
He did not think it within the power of governments to 
make the mass, in any country, much happier or more 
elevated than they are. Republics, he was wont to say, 
favored aristocratic virtues, and despotisms extinguished 
them : but, whether in a monarchy or republic, the hewers 
of wood and the drawers of water, the multitude , still 
remained intrinsically the same. 

This theory heightened his indifference to ambition. 
The watchwords of party appeared to him ridiculous ; 
and politics in general — what a great moralist termed one 
question in particular — a shuttlecock kept up by the con- 
tention of noisy children. His mind thus rested as to all 
public matters iu a state of quietude, and covered over 
with the mantle of a most false, a most perilous philos- 
ophy. His appetites to pleasure had grown somewhat 
dulled by experience, but he was as yet neither sated nor 
discontented. One feeling at his breast still remained 
scarcely diminished of its effect, when the string was 


GODOLPHIN. 


217 


touched — his tender remembrance of Constance ; and this 
had prevented any subsequent but momentary attachment 
deepening into love. Thus, at the age of seven and twenty, 
Percy Godolphin reappears on our stage. 

There was a great deal in the Italian character that our 
traveler liked : its love of ease, reduced into a system ; its 
courtesy; its content with the world as it is; its moral 
apathy as regards all that agitates life, save one passion — 
and the universal tenderness, ardor, and delicacy, which, 
in that passion, it ennobles itself in displaying. The com- 
monest peasant of Rome or Naples, though not perhaps 
in the freer land of Tuscany, can comprehend all the 
romance and mystery of the most subtle species of love; 
all that it requires, in England, the idle habits of aris- 
tocracy, or the sensitive fiber of genius, even to conceive. 
And what is yet stranger, the worn-out debauchee, sage 
with an experience and variety of licentiousness, which 
come not within the compass of a northern profligacy, 
remains alive to the earliest and most innocent senti- 
ments of the passion. And if Platonism in its coldest 
purity exist on earth, it is among the Aretins of southern 
Italy. 

This unworldly refinement, amid so much worldly cal- 
lousness, was a peculiarity that afforded perpetual amuse- 
ment to the nice eye and subtle judgment of Godolphin. 
He loved not to note the common elements of character : 
whatever was most abstract and difficult to analyze, pleased 
nim most. He mixed then much with the Pvomans, and 
was a favorite among them ; but, during his present visit 
19 


218 


GODOLPHIN. 


to the Immortal City, he did Lot, how distantly soever, 
associate with the English. His carelessness of show, and 
the independence of a single man from burdensome con- 
nections, rendered his income fully competent to his wants ; 
but, like many proud men, he was not willing to make it 
seem, even to himself, as a comparative poverty beside the 
lavish expenses of his ostentatious countrymen. Travel, 
moreover, had augmented those stores of reflection which 
rob solitude of ennui . 


CHAPTER XXX. 

MAGNETISM SYMPATHY — THE RETURN OF ELEMENTS TO ELEMENTS. 

Daily did the health of Yolktman decline ; Lucilla was 
the only one ignorant of his danger. She had never seen 
the gradual approaches of death : her mother’s abrupt and 
rapid illness made the whole of her experience of disease. 
Physicians and dark rooms were necessarily coupled in her 
mind with all graver maladies ; and as the astrologer, 
wrapt in his calculations, altered not any of his habits, 
and was insensible to pain, she fondly attributed his oc- 
casional complaints to the melancholy induced by seclusion. 
With sedentary men, diseases, being often those connected 
with the organization of the heart, do not unusually term- 
inate suddenly: it was so with Yolktman. 


GODOLPHIN. 


219 


One day he was alone with Godolphin, and their con- 
versation turned upon one of the doctrines of the old 
Magnetism, a doctrine which, depending as it does so 
much upon a seeming reference to experience, survived 
he rest of its associates, and is still not wholly out of 
repute among the wild imaginations of Germany. 

“ One of the most remarkable and abstruse points in 
what students call metaphysics,” said Volktman, “is sym- 
pathy; the first principle, according to some, of all human 
virtue. It is this, say they, which makes men just, hu- 
mane, charitable. When one who has never heard of the 
duty of assisting his neighbor, sees another drowning, he 
plunges into the water and saves him. Why ? Because 
involuntarily, and at once, his imagination places himself 
in the situation of the stranger : the pain he would ex- 
perience in the watery death glances across him : from 
this pain he hastens, without analyzing its cause, to de- 
liver himself. 

“ Humanity is thus taught him by Sympathy : where is 
this sympathy placed ? In the nerves : the nerves are the 
communicants with outward nature ; the more delicate 
the nerves, the finer the sympathies ; hence, women and 
children are more alive to sympathy than men. Well, 
mark me: do not these nerves have attraction and sym- 
pathy— not only with human suffering, but with the powers 
of what is falsely termed inanimate nature ? Do not the 
winds, the influences of the weather and the seasons, act 
confessedly upon them? and if one part of nature, why 
not another, inseparably connected too with that part ? 


220 


GODOLPHIN. 


If the weather and seasons have sympathy with the nerves, 
why not the moon and the stars, by which the weather 
and the seasons are influenced and changed? Ye of the 
schools may allow that sympathy originates some of our 
actions ; I say it governs the whole world — the whole cre- 
ation 1 Before the child is born, it is this secret affinity 
which can mark and stamp him with the witness of his 
mother’s terror or his mother’s desire.” 

“Yet,” said Godolphin, “you would scarcely, in your 
zeal for sympathy, advocate the same cause as Edricius 
Mohynnus, who cured wounds by a powder, not applied 
to the wound, but to the towel that had been dipped in 
its blood ?” 

“No,” answered Yolktman: “it is these quacks and 
pretenders that have wronged all sciences, by clamoring 
for false deductions. But I do believe of sympathy, that 
it has a power to transport ourselves out of the body and 
reunite us w r ith the absent. Hence, trances and raptures, 
in which the patient; being sincere, will tell thee, in grave 
earnestness, and with minute detail, of all that he saw, 
and heard, and encountered, afar off, in other parts of the 
earth, or even above the earth. As thou knowest the ac- 
credited story of the youth, who, being transported with a 
vehement and long-nursed desire to see his mother, did, 
through that same desire, become as it were rapt, and 
beheld her, being at the distance of many miles, and 
giving and exchanging signs of their real and bodily con- 
ference.” 

Godolphin turned aside to conceal an involuntary smi’e 


GODOLPHIN. 


221 


t this grave affirmation ; but the mystic, perhaps perceiv 
ing it, continued yet more eagerly : 

“Nay, I myself, at times, have experienced such trance, 
if trance it be ; and have conversed with them who have 
passed from the outward earth — with my father and my 
wife. And,” continued he, after a moment’s pause, “ I do 
believe that we may, by means of this power of attraction 
— this elementary and all-penetrative sympathy, pass away, 
in our last moments, at once into the bosom of those we 
love. For, by the intent and rapt longing to behold the 
Blest and to be among them, we may be drawn insensibly 
into their presence, and the hour being come, when the 
affinity between the spirit and the body shall be dissolved, 
the mind and desire, being so drawn upward, can return 
to earth no more. And this sympathy, refined and ex- 
tended, will make, I imagine, our powers, our very being, 
in a future state. Our sympathy being only, then, with 
what is immortal, we shall partake necessarily of that 
nature which attracts us; and the body no longer clog- 
ging the intenseness of our desires, we shall be able by a 
wish to transport ourselves wheresoever we please, — from 
star to star, from glory to glory, charioted and winged by 
our wishes.” 

Godolphin did not reply, for he was struck with the 
growing paleness of the mystic, and with a dreaming and 
intent fixedness that seemed creeping over his eyes, which 
were usually bright and restless. The day was now fast 
declining. Lucilla entered the room, and came caress* 
ingly to her father’s side. 


19 * 


222 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ x s the evening warm, m j child V 1 said the astrologer. 

“Ye ry mild and warm,” answered Lucilla. 

“ Give me y° ar arm, then,” said he ; “I will sit a little 
while without the threshold.” 

The Romans live in flats, as at Edinburgh, and with a 
common stair. Volktman’s abode was in the secondo 
piano. He descended the stairs with a step lighter than 
it had been of late; and sinking into a seat without the 
house, seemed silently and gratefully to inhale the soft and 
purple air of an Italian sunset. 

By-and-by the sun had entirely vanished : and that most 
brief but most delicious twilight, common to the clime, 
had succeeded. Ye il-like and soft, the mist that floats 
at that hour between earth and heaven lent its trans- 
parent shadow to the scene around them': it seemed to 
tremble as for a moment, and then was gone. The moon 
arose, and cast its light over Volktman’s earnest counte- 
nance,— over the rich bloom and watchful eye of Lucilla, 
—over the contemplative brow and motionless figure of 
Godolphin. It was a group of indefinable interest : the 
Earth was so still, that the visionary might well have 
fancied it had hushed itself, to drink within its quiet heart 
the voices of that Heaven in whose oracles he believed. 
Not one of the group spoke, — the astrologer’s mind and 
gaze were riveted above ; and neither of his companions 
wished to break the meditations of the old and dreaming 
man. 

Godolphin, with folded arms and downcast eyes, was 
pursuing his own thoughts ; and Lucilla, to whom Godol- 


GODOT. PHI N. 


223 


phin’s presence was a subtle and subduing intoxication, 
looked indeed upward to the soft and tender heavens, but 
with the soul of the loving daughter of earth. 

Slowly, nor marked by his companions, the gaze of the 
mystic deepened and deepened in its fixedness. 

The minutes went on ; and the evening waned, till a 
chill breeze, floating down from the Latian Hills, recalled 
Lucilla’s attention to her father. She covered him ten- 
derly with her own mantle, and whispered gently in his ear 
her admonition to shun the coldness of the corning night. 
He did not answer; and, on raising her voice a little 
higher, with the same result, she looked appealingly to 
Godolphin. He laid his hand on Yolktman’s shoulder; 
and, bending forward to address him, was struck dumb by 
the glazed and fixed expression of the mystic’s eyes. The 
certainty flashed across him ; he hastily felt Yolktman’s 

p U ] se it was still. There was no doubt left on his mind ; 

and yet the daughter, looking at him all the while, did not 
even dream of this sudden and awful stroke. In silence, 
and unconsciously, the strange and solitary spirit of the 
mystic had passed from its home — in what exact instant 
of time, or by what last contest of nature, was not known. 


224 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

A SCENE — LUCILLA’S STRANGE CONDUCT — GODOLPHIN PAS8ES 
THROUGH A SEVERE ORDEAL — EGERIA’s GROTTO, AND WHAT 
THERE HAPPENS. 

Let us pass over Godolphin’s most painful task. What 
Lucilla’s feelings were, the reader may imagine ; and yet, 
her wayward and unanalyzed temper mocked at once im- 
agination and expression to depict its sufferings or its joys. 

The brother of Yolktman’s wife was sent for: he and 
his wife took possession of the abode of death. This, if 
possible, heightened Lucilla’s anguish. The apathetic and 
vain character of the middle classes in Rome, which her 
relations shared, stung her heart by contrasting its own 
desolate abandonment to grief. Above all, she was re- 
volted by the unnatural ceremonies of a Roman funeral. 
The corpse exposed — the cheeks painted — the parading 
procession, — all shocked the delicacy of her real and reck- 
less affliction. But when this was over — when the rite of 
death was done, and when, in the house wherein her sire 
had presided, and she herself had been left to a liberty 
wholly unrestricted, she saw strangers (for such compara- 
tively her relatives were to her) settling themselves down, 
w ith vacant countenances and light words, to the common 
occupations of life, — when she saw them move, alter (nay, 
talk calmly, and sometimes with jests, of selling) those 


GODOLPHIN. 


225 


little household articles of furniture which, homely and 
worn as they were, were hallowed to her by a thousand 
dear, and infantine, and filial recollections; — when, too, 
she found herself treated as a child, and, in some measure, 
as a dependent, — when she, the wild, the free, saw herself 
subjected to restraint — nay, heard the commonest actions 
of her life chidden and reproved, — when she saw the trite 
and mean natures which thus presumed to lord it over her, 
and assume empire in the house of one, of whose wild and 
lofty, though erring speculations — of whose generous 
though abstract elements of character, she could compre- 
hend enough to respect, while what she did not comprehend 
heightened the respect into awe ; — then, the more vehe- 
ment and indignant passions of her mind broke forth ! her 
flashing eye, her scornful gesture, her mysterious threat, 
and her open defiance, astonished always, sometimes 
amused, but more often terrified, the apathetic and super- 
stitious Italians. 

Godolphin, moved by interest and pity for the daughter 
of his friend, called once or twice after the funeral at the 
house ; and commended, with promises and gifts, the deso- 
late girl to the tenderness and commiseration of her rela- 
tions. There is nothing an Italian will not promise, 
nothing he will not sell ; and Godolphin thus purchased, 
in reality, a forbearance to Lucilla’s strange temper (as it 
was considered), which otherwise, assuredly, would not have 
been displayed. 

More than a month had elapsed since the astrologer’s 
decease ; and, the season of the malaria verging to its 
19* p 


226 


GODOLPHIN. 


commencement, Godolpkin meditated a removal to Naples. 
He strolled, two days prior to his departure, to the house 
on the Appia Yia, in order to take leave of Lucilla and 
bequeath to her relations his parting injunctions. 

It was a strange and harsh face that peered forth on 
him through the iron grating of the door before he ob- 
tained admittance; and when he entered, he heard the 
sound of voices in loud altercation. Among the rest, the 
naturally dulcet and silver tones of Lucilla were strained 
beyond their wonted key, and breathed the accents of pas- 
sion and disdain. 

He entered the room whence the sounds of dispute pro- 
ceeded ; and the first face that presented itself to him was 
that of Lucilla. It was flushed with anger ; the veins in 
the smooth forehead were swelled ; the short lip breathed 
beautiful contempt. She stood at some little distance 
from the rest of the inmates of the room, who were seated ; 
and her posture was erect and even stately, though in 
wrath : her arms were folded upon her bosom, and the 
composed excitement of her figure contrasted with the 
play, and fire, and energy of her features. 

At Godolphin’s appearance, a sudden silence fell upon 
the conclave ; the uncle and the aunt (the latter of whom 
had seemed the noisiest) subsided into apologetic respect 
to the rich (he was rich to them) young Englishman ; and 
Lucilla sank into a seat, covered her face with her small 
and beautiful hands, and — humbled from her anger and 
her vehemence — burst into tears/ 

“And what is this?” said Godolphin, pityingly. 


GODOLPHIN. 


m 

The Italians hastened to inform him. Lucilla had chosen 
to absent herself from home every evening ; she had been 
seen, the last night, on the Corso, — crowded as that street 
was with the young, the profligate, and the idle. They 
could not but reprove “the dear girl” for this indiscretion 
(Italians, indifferent as to the conduct of the married, are 
generally attentive to that of their single women) ; and 
she announced her resolution to persevere in it. 

“Is this true, my pupil?” said Godolphin, turning to 
Lucilla: the poor girl sobbed on, but returned no an- 
swer. 

“ Leave me to reprimand and admonish her,” said he to 
the aunt and uncle ; and they, without appearing to notice 
the incongruity of reprimand in the mouth of a man of 
seven and twenty to a girl of fifteen, chattered forth a 
Babel of conciliation, and left the apartment. 

Godolphin, young as he might be, was not unfitted for 
his task. There was a great deal of quiet dignity mingled 
with the kindness of his manner; and his affection for 
Lucilla had hitherto been so pure, that he felt no embar- 
rassment in addressing her as a brother. He approached 
the corner of the room in which she sat ; he drew a chair 
near to her, and took her reluctant and trembling hand 
with a gentleness that made her weep with a yet wilder 
vehemence. 

“My dear Lucilla,” said he, “you know your father 
honored me with his regard : . let me presume on that 
regard, and on my long acquaintance with yourself, to 
address you as your friend — as your brother 1” Lucilla 


223 


GODOLPHIN. 


drew away her hand ; but again, as if ashamed of the im- 
pulse, extended it toward him. 

“You cannot know the world as I do, dear Lucilla,” 
continued Godolphin; “for experience in its affairs is 
bought at some little expense, which I pray that it may 
never cost you. In all countries, Lucilla, an unmarried 
female is exposed to dangers which, without any actual 
fault of her own, may embitter her future life. One of 
the greatest of these dangers lies in deviating from cus- 
tom. With the woman who does this, every man thinks 

himself entitled to give his thoughts — his words nay, 

even his actions, a license which you cannot but dread to 
incur. Your uncle and aunt, therefore, do right to advise 
your not going alone, to the public streets of Rome more 
especially, except in the broad daylight ; and though their 
advice be irksomely intruded, and ungracefully couched, it 
is good in its principle, and — yes, dearest Lucilla, even 
necessary for you to follow.” 

“But,” said Lucilla, through her tears, “you cannot 
guess what insults, what unkindness, I have been forced to 
submit to from them. I, who never knew, till now, what in- 
sult and unkindness were ! I, who ” here sobs checked 

her utterance. 

“ But how, my young and fair friend, how can you mend 
their manners by destroying their esteem for you? Re- 
spect yourself, Lucilla, if you wish others to respect you. 
But, perhaps,” — and such a thought for the first time 
flashed across Godolphin, — “ perhaps you did not seek 
the Corso for the crowd , but for one: perhaps you went 


GODOLPHIN. 


229 


there to meet — dare I guess the fact? — an admirer, a 
lover. ” 

“ Now you insult me 1” cried Lucilla, angrily. 

“ I thank you for your anger ; I accept it as a contra- 
diction, ’’ said Godolphin. “But listen yet awhile, and 
forgive frankness. If there be any one, among the throng 
of Italian youths, whom you have seen, and could be 
happy with ; one who loves you, and whom you do not 
hate ; — remember that I am your father’s friend ; that I 
am rich ; that I can ” 

“Cruel, cruel!” interrupted Lucilla; and withdrawing 
herself from Godolphin, she walked to and fro with great 
and struggling agitation. 

“ Is it not so, then ?” said Godolphin, doubtingly. 

“No, sir: no 1” 

“Lucilla Volktman,” said Godolphin, with a colder 
gravity than he had yet called forth, “ I claim some atten- 
tion from you ; some confidence ; nay, some esteem ; — for 
the sake of your father, — for the sake of your early years, 
when I assisted to teach you my native tongue, and loved 
you as a brother. Promise me that you will not commit 
this indiscretion any more — at least till we meet again ; 
nay, that you will not stir abroad, save with one of your 
relations.” 

“Impossible! impossible!” cried Lucilla, vehemently ; 
“it were to take away the only solace I have: it were to 
make life a privation — a curse.” 

“Not so, Lucilla; it is to make life respectable and 
safe. I, on the other hand, will engage that all within 
20 


230 


GODOLPHIN. 


these walls shall behave to you with indulgence and kind- 
ness.” 

“ I care not for their kindness ! — for the kindness of any 
one, save ” 

“Whom?” asked Godolphin, perceiving she would not 
proceed : but as she was still silent, he did not press 
the question. “Cornel” said he, persuasively: “come, 
promise, and be friends with me ; do not let us part 
angrily : I am about to take my leave of you for many 
months. 

“ Part I — you ! — months 1 — 0 God, do not say so P* 

With these words, she was by his side ; and gazing on 
him with her large and pleading eyes, wherein was stamped 
a wildness, a terror, the cause of which he did not as yet 
decipher. 

“ No, no,” said she, with a faint smile : “no ! you meant 
to frighten me, to extort my promise. You are not going 
to desert me !” 

“ But, Lueilla, I will not leave you to unkindness ; they 
shall not — they dare not wound you again.” 

“ Say to me that you are not going from Rome : — 
speak ; quick 1” 

“I go in two days.” 

“Then let me die 1” said Lueilla, in a tone of such deep 
despair that it chilled and appalled Godolphin ; who did 
not, however, attribute her grief (the grief of this mere 
child — a child so wayward arrd eccentric) to any other 
cause than that feeling of abandonment which the young 
eo bitterly experience at being left utterly alone with 


GODOLPHIN. 


231 

persons unfamiliar to their habits and opposed to their 
liking. 

He sought to soothe her, but she repelled him. Her 
features worked convulsively : she walked twice across the 
room ; then stopped opposite to him, and a certain strained 
composure on her brow seemed to denote that she had 
arrived at some sudden resolution. 

“ Wouldst thou ask me,” she said, “what cause took me 
into the streets as the shadows darkened and enabled me 
lightly to bear threats at'home and risk abroad ?” 

“Ay, Lucilla : will you tell me ?” 

“Thou wast the cause !” she said, in a low voice, trem- 
bling with emotion, and the next moment sunk on her 
knees before him. 

With a confusion that ill became so practiced and 
favored a gallant, Godolphin sought to raise her. “Hoi 
no 1” she said; “you will despise me now: let me lie here, 
and die thinking of thee. Yes ! ,; she continued, with an 
inward but rapid voice, as he lifted her reluctant frame 
from the earth, and hung over her with a cold and unca- 
ressing attention : “yes ! you I loved — I adored — from my 
very childhood. When you were by, life seemed changed 
to me; when absent, I longed for night, that I might 
dream of you. The spot you had touched I marked out 
in silence, that I might kiss it and address it when you 
were gone. You left us; four years passed away : and the 
recollection of you made and shaped my very nature. 1 
loved solitude ; for in solitude I saw you — in imagination 
I spoke to you — and methought you answered and did not 


232 


GODOLPHIN 


chide You returned — and — and — but no matter: to see 
you, at the hour you usually leave home — to see you , I 
wandered forth with the evening. I tracked you, myself 
unseen; I followed you at a distance — I marked you dis- 
appear within some of the proud palaces that never know 
what love is. I returned home weeping, but happy. And 
do you think — do you dare to think — that I should have 
told you this, had you not driven me mad? — had you not 
left me reckless of what henceforth was thought of me — 
became of me ? What will life be to me when you are 
gone? And now I have said all ! Go ! You do not love 
me — I know it — but do not say so. Go — leave me ; why 
do you not leave me ?” 

Does there live one man who can hear a woman, young 
and beautiful, confess attachment to him, and not catch 
the contagion ? Affected, flattered, and almost melted into 
love himself, Godolphin felt all the danger of the moment: 
but this young, inexperienced girl — the daughter of his 
friend — no ! her he could not — loving, willing as she was, 
betray. 

Yet it was some moments before he could command 
himself sufficiently to answer her: — “ Listen to me calmly,” 
at length he said ; “ we are at least to each other dear 
friends : nay, listen, I beseech you. I, Lucilla, am a man 
whose heart is forestalled — exhausted before its time ; I 
have loved, deeply and passionately : that love is over, 
but it has unfitted me for any species of love resembling 
itself — any which I could offer to you. Dearest Lucilla, I 
will not disguise the truth from you. Were I to love you, 


GODOLPHIN. 


23u 

it would be — not in the eyes of your countrymen (with 
whom such connections are common), but in the eyes of 
mine — it would be dishonor. Shall I confer even this 
partial dishonor on you? No! Lucilla, this feeling of 
yours toward me is (pardon me) but a young and childish 
fantasy : you will smile at it some years hence. I am not 
worthy of so pure and fresh a heart : but at least ” — (here 
he spoke in a lower voice, and as to himself) — “ at least I 
am not so unworthy as to wrong it.” 

“ Go 1” said Lucilla ; “go, I implore you.” She spoke, 
and stood hueless and motionless, as if the life (life’s life 
was indeed gone !) had departed from her. Her features 
were set and rigid ; the tears that stole in large drops 
down her cheeks were unfelt; a slight quivering of her 
lips only, bespoke what passed within her. 

“Ah !” cried Godolphin, stung from his usual calm — 
stung from the quiet kindness he had sought, from princi- 
ple, to assume — “can I withstand this trial? — I, whose 
dream of life has been the love that I might now find ! I, 
who have never before known an obstacle to a wish which 
I have not contended against, if not conquered ; and, 
weakened as I am with the habitual indulgence to tempta- 
tion, which has never been so strong as now ; — but no ! I 
will — I will deserve this attachment by self-restraint, self- 
sacrifice.” 

He moved away ; and then returning, dropped on his 
knee before Lucilla. 

“ Spare me !” said he, in an agitated voice, which 
brought back all the blood to that young and transparent 

20 * 


234 


GODOLPHIN. 


cheek, which was now half averted from him — “spare me 

spare yourself! Look around, when I am gone, for 

some one to replace my image : thousands younger, fairer, 
warmer of heart, will aspire to your love ; that love for 
them will be exposed to no peril— no shame : forget me ; 
select another ; be happy and respected. Permit me alone 
to fill the place of your friend— your brother. I will pro- 
vide for your comforts, your liberty : you shall be re- 
strained, offended no more. God bless you, dear, dear 
Lucilla ; and believe” (he said almost in a whisper) “that, 
in thus flying you, I have acted generously, and with an 
effort worthy of your loveliness and your love.” 

He said, and hurried from the apartment. Lucilla 
turned slowly round as the door closed, and then fell mo- 
tionless on the ground. 

Meanwhile Godolphin, mastering his emotion, sought 
the host and hostess; and begging them to visit his lodg- 
ing that evening, to receive certain directions and rewards, 
hastily left the house. 

But instead of returning home, the desire for a brief 
solitude and self-commune, which usually follows strong 
excitement (and which, in all less ordinary events, sug- 
gested his sole counselors or monitors to the musing Go- 
dolphin), led his steps in an opposite direction. Scarcely 
conscious whither he was wandering, he did not pause till 
he found himself in that green and still valley in which 
the pilgrim beholds the grotto of Egeria. 

It was noon, and the day warm, but not overpowering. 
The leaf slept on the old trees that are scattered about 


GODOLPIIIN. 


235 


that little valley ; and amid the soft and rich turf the wan- 
derer’s step disturbed the lizard, basking its brilliant hues 
in the noontide, and glancing rapidly through the herbage 
as it retreated. And from the trees, and through the air, 
the occasional song of the birds (for in Italy their voices 
are rare) floated with a peculiar clearness, and even noisi- 
ness of music, along the deserted haunts of the Nymph. 

The scene, rife with its beautiful associations, recalled 
Godolphin from his reverie. “And here,” thought he, 
“ Fable has thrown its most lovely and enduring enchant- 
ment: here, every one who has tasted the loves of earth, 
and sickened for the love that is ideal, finds a spell more 
attractive to his steps — more fraught with contemplation 
to his spirit, than aught raised by the palace of the Caesars 
or the tomb of the Scipios.” 

Thus meditating, and softened by the late scene with 
Lucilla (to which his thoughts again recurred), he saun- 
tered onward to the steep side of the bank, in which faith 
and tradition have hollowed out the grotto of the goddess. 
He entered the silent cavern, and bathed his temples in 
the delicious waters of the fountain. 

It was perhaps well that it was not at that moment 
Lucilla made to him her strange and unlooked-for confes- 
sion ! again and again he said to himself (as if seeking for 
a justification of his self-sacrifice), “Her father was not 
Italian, and possessed feeling and honor: let me not for- 
get that he loved me I” In truth, the avowal of this wild 
girl ; an avowal made indeed with the ardor — but also 
breathing of the innocence, the inexperience — of her char- 


236 


GODOLPHIN. 


acter — had opened to his fancy new and not undelicioua 
prospects. He had never loved her, save with a lukewarm 
kindness, before that last hour ; but now, in recalling her 
beauty, her tears, her passionate abandonment, can we 
wonder that he felt a strange beating at his heart, and 
that he indulged that dissolved and luxuriops vein of 
tender meditation which is the prelude to all love ? We 
must recall, too, the recollection of his own temper, so 
constantly yearning for the unhackneyed, the untasted ; 
and his deep and soft order of imagination, by which he 
involuntarily conjured up the delight of living with one, 
watching one, so different from the rest of the world, and 
whose thoughts and passions (wild as they might be) were 
all devoted to him ! 

And in what spot were these imaginings fed and 
colored ? In a spot which, in the nature of its divine 
fascination, could be found only beneath one sky — that sky 
the most balmy and loving upon earth ! Who could think 
of love within the haunt and temple of 

“ That Nympholepsy of some fond despair,” 

and not feel that love enhanced, deepened, modulated, into 
at once a dream and a desire ? 

It was long that Godolphin indulged himself in recalling 
the image of Lucilla; but nerved at length, and gradually, 
by harder, and we may hope better, sentiments than those 
of a love which he could scarcely indulge, without crim- 
inality on the one hand, or, what must have appeared to 
the man of the world, derogatory folly on the other, he 


/ 


GODOLPHIN. 


23T 


turned his thoughts into a less voluptuous channel, and 
prepared, though with a reluctant step, to depart home- 
ward. But what was his amaze, his confusion, when, on 
reaching the mouth of the cave, he saw within a few steps 
of him Lucilla herself ! 

She was walking alone and slowly, her eves bent upon 
the ground, and did not perceive him. According to a 
common custom with the middle classes of Rome, her rich 
hair, save by a single band, was uncovered; and as her 
slight and exquisite form moved along the velvet sod, so 
beautiful a shape, and a face so rare in its character, and 
delicate in its expression, were in harmony with the sweet 
superstition of the spot, and seemed almost to restore to 
the deserted cave and the mourning stream their living 
Egeria. 

Godolphin stood transfixed to the earth ; and Lucilla, 
who was walking in the direction of the grotto, did not 
perceive, till she was almost immediately before him. She 
gave a faint scream as she lifted her eyes ; and the first 
and most natural sentiment of the woman breaking forth 
involuntarily, — she attempted to falter out her disavowal 
of all expectation of meeting him there : 

“Indeed, indeed, I did not know — that is — I — I ” 

she could achieve no more. 

“Is this a favorite spot with you?” said he, with the 
vague embarrassment of one at a loss for words. 

“Yes,” said Lucilla, faintly. 

And so, in truth, it was : for its vicinity to her home, 
the beauty of the little valley, and the interest attached to 


238 


GODOLPIIIN. 


it an interest not the less to her in that she was but im* 

perfectly acquainted with the true legend of the Nymph 
and her royal lover — had made it, even from her child- 
hood, a chosen and beloved retreat, especially in that dan- 
gerous summer time, which drives the visitor from the 
spot and leaves the scene, in great measure, to the soli- 
tude which befits it. Associated as the place was with the 
recollections of her earlier grief, it was thither that her 
first instinct made her fly from the rude contact and dis- 
pleasing companionship of her relations, to give vent to 
the various and conflicting passions which the late scene 
with Godolphin had called forth. 

They now stood for a few moments silent and embar- 
rassed, till Godolphin, resolved to end a scene which he 
began to feel was dangerous, said in a hurried tone : 

“ Farewell, my sweet pupil ! — farewell ! — May God bless 
you I” 

He extended his hand. Lucilla seized it, as if by im- 
pulse; and conveying it suddenly to her lips, bathed it 
with tears. 

“I feel,” said this wild and unregulated girl, “I feel, 
from your manner, that I ought to be grateful to you ; yet 
I scarcely know why: you confess you cannot love me, 
that my affection distresses you — you fly — you desert me. 
Ah, if you felt one particle even of friendship for me, could 
you do so ?” 

“ Lucilla, what can I say? — I cannot marry you.” 

“Do I wish it? — I ask thee but to let me go with thee 
wherever thou goest.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


239 


°Poor child!” said Godolphin, gazing on her; “art. 
thou not aware that thou askest thine own dishonor?” 

Lucilla seemed surprised: — “Is it dishonor to love? 
They do not think so in Italy. It is wrong for a maiden 
to confess it ; but that thou hast forgiven me. And if to 
follow thee — to sit with thee — to be near thee — bring 
aught of evil to myself, not thee, — let me incur the evil : 
it can be nothing compared to the agony of thy absence !” 

She looked uf> timidly as she spoke, and saw, with a 
sort of terror, that his face worked with emotions which 
seemed to choke his answer. “If,” she cried passionately, 
“if I have said what pains thee — if I have asked what 
would give dishonor, as thou callest it, or harm to thyself, 
forgive me — I knew it not — and leave me. But if it were 
not of thyself that thou didst speak, believe that thou hast 
done me but a cruel mercy. Let me go with thee, I im- 
plore ! I have no friend here : no one loves me. I hate 
the faces I gaze upon ; I loathe the voices I hear. And, 
were it for nothing else* thou remindest me of him who 
is gone: — thou art familiar to me — every look of thee 
breathes of my home, of my household recollections. Take 
me with thee, beloved stranger ! or leave me to die — I will 
not survive thy loss!” 

“ You speak of your father : know you that, were I to 
grant what you, in your childish innocence, so unthink- 
ingly request, he might curse me from his grave ?” 

“0 God, not so! — mine is the prayer — be mine the 
guilt, if guilt there be. But is it not unkinder in thee to 
desert his daughter, than to protect her ?” 


GODOLPHIN. 


240 

There was a great, a terrible struggle in Godolphin'a 
breast. “What,” said he, scarcely knowing what he said, 
— “what will the world think of you if you fly with a 
stranger ?” 

“There is no world to me but thee I” 

“What will your uncle — your relations say?” 

“I care not; for I shall not hear them.” 

“ No, no ; this must not be I” said Godolphin, proudly, 
and once more conquering himself. “ Luoflla, I would give 
up every other dream or hope in life to feel that I might 
requite this devotion by passing my life with thee : to feel 
that I might grant what thou askest without wronging thy 
innocence; but — but ” 

“You love me, then! You love me!” cried Lucilla, 
joyously, and alive to no other interpretation of his words. 

Godolphin was transported beyond himself ; and clasp- 
ing Lucilla in his arms, he covered her cheeks, her lips, 
with impassioned and burning kisses; then suddenly, as if 
stung by some irresistible impulse, he tore himself away 
and fled from the spot. 


GODOLPHIN. 


I4l 


CHAPTER, XXXII. 

THE WEAKNESS OF ALL VIRTUE SPRINGING ONLY FROM THE 
FEELINGS. 

It was the evening before Godolphin left Rome. As 
he was entering his palazzo he descried, in the darkness, 
and at a little distance, a figure wrapped in a mantle, that 
reminded him of Lucilla ; — ere he could certify himself it 
was gone. 

On entering his rooms, he looked eagerly over the papers 
Rnd notes on his table : he seemed disappointed with the 
result, and sat himself down in moody and discontented 
thought. He had written to Lucilla the day before, a 
long, a kind, nay, a noble outpouring of his thoughts and 
feelings. As far as he was able, to one so simple in her 
experience, yet so wild in her fancy, he explained to her 
the nature of his struggles and his self-sacrifice. He did 
not disguise from her that, till the moment of her confes- 
sion, he had never examined the state of his heart toward 
her; nor that, with that confession, a new and ardent train 
of sentiment had been kindled within him. He knew 
enough of women to be aware that the last avowal would 
be the sweetest consolation both to her vanity and her 
heart. He assured her of the promises he had received 
from her relations to grant her the liberty and the indul- 

21 Q 


242 


GODOLPHIN. 


gence that her early and unrestrained habits required ; 
and, in the most delicate and respectful terms, he inclosed 
an order for a sum of money sufficient at any time to com 
mand the regard of those with whom she lived, or to en- 
able her to choose, should she so desire (though he advised 
her not to adopt such a measure, save for the most urgent 
reasons), another residence. “ Send me in return,” he 
said, as he concluded, “a lock of your hair. I want no- 
thing to remind me of your beauty; but I want some 
token of the heart of whose affection I am so mournfully 
proud. I will wear it as a charm against the contamina- 
tion of that world of which you are so happily ignorant — 
as a memento of one nature beyond the thought of self — 
as a surety that, in finding within this base and selfish 
quarter of earth one soul so warm, so pure as yours, I 
did not deceive myself, and dream. If we ever meet again, 
may you have then found some one happier than I am, 
and in his tenderness have forgotten all of me save one 
kind remembrance. — Beautiful and dear Lucilla, adieu I 
If I have not given way to the luxury of being beloved by 
you, it is because your generous self-abandonment has 
awakened, within a heart too selfish to others, a real love 
for yourself.” 

To this letter Godolphin had, hour after hour, expected 
a reply. He received none — not even the lock of hair for 
which he had pressed. He was disappointed — angry with 
Lucilla — dissatisfied with himself. “How bitterly,” thought 
he, “the wise Saville would smile at my folly ! I have 
renounced the bliss of possessing this singular and beau- 


GODOLPIIIN. 


243 


tiful being; for what? — a scruple which she cannot even 
comprehend, and at which, in her friendless and forlorn 
state, the most starch of her dissolute countrywomen would 
smile as a ridiculous punctilio. And, in truth, had I fled 
hence with her, should I not have made her throughout 
life happier — far happier, than she will be now? Nor 
would she, in that happiness, have felt, like an English 
girl, any pang of shame. Here, the tie would have never 
been regarded as a degradation ; nor does she, recurring 
to the simple laws of nature, imagine that any one could 
so regard it. Besides, inexperienced as she is — the crea- 
ture of impulse — will she not fall a victim to some more 
artful and less generous lover? — to some one who in her 
innocence will see only forwardness ; and who, far from 
protecting her as I should have done, will regard her but 
as the plaything of an hour, and cast her forth the moment 
his passion is sated ? — Sated ! 0 bitter thought, that the 
head of another should rest upon that bosom now so wholly 
mine ! After all, I have, in vainly adopting a seeming and 
sounding virtue, merely renounced my own happiness to 
leave her to the chances of being permanently rendered 
unhappy, and abandoned to want, shame, destitution, by 
another !” 

These disagreeable and regretful thoughts were, in turn, 
but weakly combated by the occasional self-congratulation 
that belongs to a just or generous act, and were varied by 
a thousand conjectures — now of anxiety, now of anger — 
as to the silence of Lucilla. Sometimes he thought— but 
the thought only glanced partially across him, and was not 


244 


GODOLPHIN. 


distinctly acknowledged — that she might seek an interview 
with him ere he departed; and in this hope he did not re- 
tire to rest till the dawn broke over the ruins of the mighty 
and breathless city. He then flung himself on a sofa with- 
out undressing, but could not sleep, save in short and 
broken intervals. 

The next day, he put off his departure till noon, still in 
the hope of hearing from Lucilla, but in vain. He could 
not flatter himself with the hope that Lucilla did not know 
the exact time for his journey— he had expressly stated it. 
Sometimes he conceived the notion of seeking her again ; 
but he knew too well the weakness of his generous reso- 
lution; and, though infirm of thought, was yet virtuous 
enough in act not to hazard it to certain defeat. At length, 
in a momentary desperation, and muttering reproaches on 
Lucilla for her fickleness and inability to appreciate the 
magnanimity of his conduct, he threw himself into his car- 
riage and bade adieu to Rome. 

As every grove that the traveler passes on that road 
was guarded once by a nymph, so now it is hallowed by a 
memory. In vain the air, heavy with death, creeps over 
the wood, the rivulet, and the shattered tower ; — the mind 
will not recur to the risk of its ignoble tenement ; it flies 
back ; it is with the Past ! A subtle and speechless rap- 
ture fills and exalts the spirit. There — far to the West 

spreads that purple sea, haunted by a million reminiscences 
of glory ; there the mountains, with their sharp and snowy 
crests, rise into the bosom of the heavens; on that plain, 
the pilgrim yet hails the traditional tomb of the Curiatii 


GODOLPHIN. 


245 


and those immortal Twins who left to their brother the 
glory of conquest, and the shame by which it was suc- 
ceeded: around the Lake of Nemi yet bloom the sacred 
groves by which Diana raised Hippolytus again into life 
Poetry, Fable, History, watch over the land : it is a sepul- 
cher; Death is within and around it; Decay writes defea- 
ture upon every stone ; — but the Past sits by the tomb as 
a mourning angel ; a soul breathes through the desolation ; 
a voice calls amid the silence. Every age that hath passed 
away hath left a ghost behind it; and the beautiful land 
seems like that imagined clime beneath the earth in which 
man, glorious though it be, may not breathe and live — but 
which is populous with holy phantoms and illustrious 
shades. 

On, on sped Godolphin. Night broke over him as he 
traversed the Pontine Marshes. There, the malaria broods 
over its rankest venom : solitude hath lost the soul that 
belonged to it : all life, save the deadly fertility of corrup- 
tion, seems to have rotted away : the spirit falls stricken 
into gloom; a nightmare weighs upon the breast of Na- 
ture ; and over the wrecks of Time, Silence sits motionless 
in the arms of Death. 

He arrived at Terracina, and retired to rest. His sleep 
was filled with fearful dreams : he woke, late at noon, lan- 
guid and dejected. As his servant, who had lived with 
him some years, attended him in rising, Godolphin ob- 
served on his countenance that expression common to 
persons of his class when they have something which they 
wish to communicate, and are watching their opportunity. 

21 * 


246 


GODOLPHIN. 


“Well, Malden I” said he, “you look important this 
morning: what has happened ?” 

“E— hem ! Did not you observe, sir, a carriage behind 
us as we crossed the marshes ? Sometimes you might just 
see it at a distance, in the moonlight.” 

“How the deuce should I, being within the carriage, see 
behind me? No; I know nothing of the carriage: what 
of it?” 

“A person arrived in it, sir, a little after you— would 
not retire to bed — and waits you in your sitting-room.” 

“A person! what person ?” 

“A lady, sir, — a young lady,” said the servant, sup- 
pressing a smile. 

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Godolphin : “leave me.” 
The valet obeyed. 

Godolphin, not for a moment doubting that it was Lu- 
cilla who had thus followed him, was struck to the heart 
by this proof of her resolute and reckless attachment. In 
any other woman, so bold a measure would, it is true, have 
revolted his fastidious and somewhat English taste. But 
in Lucilla, all that might have seemed immodest arose, in 
reality, from that pure and spotless ignorance which, of 
all species of modesty, is the most enchanting, the most 
dangerous to its possessor. The daughter of loneliness 
and seclusion— estranged wholly from all familiar or female 
intercourse — rather bewildered than in any way enlightened 
by the few books of poetry, or the lighter letters, she had 
by accident read — the sense of impropriety was in her so 
vague a sentiment, that every impulse of her wild and im- 


GODOLPHIN. 


241 


passioned character effaced and swept it away. Ignorant 
of what is due to the reserve of the sex, and even of the 
opinions of the world — lax as the Italian world is on 
matters of love — she only saw occasion to glory in her 
tenderness, her devotion, to one so elevated in her fancy 
as the English stranger. Nor did there — however uncon- 
sciously to herself — mingle a single more derogatory or 
less pure emotion with her fanatical worship. 

For my own part, I think that few men understand the 
real nature of a girl’s love. Arising so vividly as it does 
from the imagination, nothing that the mind of the liber- 
tine would impute to it ever (or at least in most rare in- 
stances) sullies its weakness or debases its folly. I do not 
say the love is better for being thus solely the creature of 
imagination : I say only, so it is in ninety-nine out of a 
hundred instances of girlish infatuation. In later life, it is 
different: in the experienced woman, forwardness is always 
depravity. 

With trembling steps and palpitating heart, Godolphin 
sought the apartment in which he expected to find Lucilla. 
There, in one corner of the room, her face covered with 
her mantle, he beheld her: he hastened to that spot; he 
threw himself on his knees before her; with a timid hand 
he removed the covering from her face; and through tears, 
and paleness, and agitation, his heart was touched to the 
quick by its soft and loving expression. 

“Wilt thou forgive me?” she faltered; “it was thine 
own letter that brought me hither. Now leave me, if thou 
canst I” 


248 


GODOLPIIIN. 


“Never, never!” cried Godolphin, clasping her to his 
heart. “It is fated, and I resist ^no more. Love, tend, 
cherish thee, I will to my last hour. I will be all to thee 
that human ties can afford — father, brother, lover — all 

but ” He paused ; “ all but husband,” whispered his 

conscience, but he silenced its voice. 

“I may go with thee!” said Lucilla, in wild ecstacy : 
that was her only thought. 

As, when the notion of escape occurs to the insane, 
their insanity appears to cease ; courage, prudence, cau- 
tion, invention (faculties which they knew not in sounder 
health) flash upon and support them as by an inspiration ; 
so, a new genius had seemed breathed into Lucilla by the 
idea of rejoining Godolphin. She imagined — not without 
justice — that, could she throw in the way of her return 
home an obstacle of that worldly nature which he seemed 
to dread she should encounter, his chief reason for resist- 
ing her attachment would be removed. Encouraged by 
this thought, and more than ever transported by her love 
since he had expressed a congenial sentiment ; excited into 
emulation by the generous tone of bis letter, and softened 
into yet deeper weakness by its tenderness ; — she bad re- 
solved upon the bold step she adopted. A vetturino lived 
near the gate of St. Sebastian : she had sought him ; and 
at sight of the money which Godolphin had sent her, the 
vetturino willingly agreed to transport her to whatever 

point on the road to Naples she might desire nav, even 

to keep pace with the more rapid method of traveling 
which Godolphin pursued. Early on the morning of his 


GODOLPIIIN. 


240 


departure, she had sought her station within sight of Go- 
dolphin’s palazzo ; and ten minutes after his departure 
the vetturino bore her, delighted but trembling, on the 
same road. The Italians are ordinarily good natured, 
especially when they are paid for it; and courteous to 
females, especially if they have any suspicion of the influ- 
ence of the belle passion. The vetturino ' s foresight had 
supplied the deficiencies of her inexperience : he had re- 
minded her of the necessity of procuring her passport; 
and he undertook that all other difficulties should solely 
devolve on him. And thus Lucilla was now under the 
same roof with one for whom, indeed, she was unaware of 
the sacrifice she made ; but whom, despite of all that 
clouded and separated their after-lot, she loved to the last, 
with a love as reckless and strong as then — a love passing 
the love of woman, and defying the common ordinances of 
time. 

****** 

****** 

****** 

On the blue waters that break with a deep and far voice 
along the rocks of that delicious shore, above which the 
mountain that rises behind Terracina scatters to the air 
the odors of the citron and the orange — on that sounding 
and immemorial sea the stars, like the hopes of a brighter 
world upon the darkness and unrest of life, shone down 
with a solemn but tender light. On that shore stood Lu- 
cilla and he — the wandering stranger — in whom she had 
hoarded the peace and the hopes of earth. Hers was the 
21* 


230 


GODOLPHIN. 


first and purple flush of the love which has attained its 
object; that sweet and quiet fullness of content — that 
heavenly, all-subduing and subdued delight, with which 
the heart slumbers in the excess of its own rapture. Care 
— the forethought of change — even the shadowy and vague 
mournfulness of passion — are felt not in those voluptuous 
but tranquil moments. Like the waters that rolled, deep 
and eloquent before her, every feeling within was but the 
mirror of an all-gentle and cloudless heaven. Her head 
half declined upon the breast of her young lover, she 
caught the beating of his heart, and in it heard all the 
sounds of what was now become to her the world. 

And still and solitary deepened around them the mystic 
and lovely night. How divine was that sense and con- 
sciousness of solitude 1 how, as it thrilled within them, 
they clung closer to each other 1 Theirs as yet was that 
blissful and unsated time when the touch of their hands, 
clasped together, was in itself a happiness of emotion too 
deep for words. And ever, as his eyes sought hers, the 
• tears which the sensitiveness of her frame, the very luxury 
of her overflowing heart, called forth, glittered in the 
tranquil stars a moment and were kissed away. “Do not 
look up to heaven, my love,” whispered Godolphiu, “ lest 
thou shouldst think of any world but this !” 

Poor Lucilla ! will any one who idly glances over this 
page sympathize one moment with the springs of thy brief 
joys and thy bitter sorrow ? The page on which, in stamp- 
ing a record of thee, I would fain retain thy memory from 
oblivion; that page is an emblem of thyself; a short 


GODOLPHTN. 


251 


existence, — confounded with the herd to which it has no 
resemblance, and then, amid the rush and tumult of the 
world, forgotten and cast away forever ! 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


RETURN TO LADY ERPINGHAM LADY ERPINGHAM FALLS ILL LORD 

ERPINGHAM RESOLVES TO GO ARROAD PLUTARCH UPON MUSICAL 

INSTRUMENTS PARTY AT ERPINGHAM HOUSE SAVILLE ON SO- 
CIETY AND THE TASTE FOR THE LITTLE DAVID MANDEVILLE 

WOMEN, THEIR INFLUENCE AND EDUCATION — THE NECESSITY OF 
AN OEJECT RELIGION 


As, after a long dream, we rise to the occupations of 
life, even so, with an awakening and more active feeling, I 
return fro-m characters removed from the ordinary world — 
like Yolktman* and his daughter — to the brilliant heroine 
of my narrative. 

There is a certain tone about London society which en- 
feebles the mind without exciting it; and this state of 
temperament, more than all others, engenders satiety. In 


* After all, an astrologer — nay, a cabalist — is not so monstrous 
a prodigy in the nineteenth century! In the year 1801, Lacking- 
ton published a quarto, entitled “Magus: a Complete System of 
Occult Philosophy ; treating of Alchemy, the Cabalistic Art, Nat- 
ural and Celestial Magic,” etc.— and a very impudent publication 
it is to-o. That Raphael should put forth astrological manuals is 
not a proof of his belief in the science he professes; but that it 
should answer to Raphael to put them forth, shows a tendency to 
belief in his purchasers. 


252 


G0D0LP1IIN. 


classes that border upon the highest this effect is less evi. 
dent; for in them there is some object to contend for. 
Fashion gives them an inducement. They struggle to 
emulate the ton of their superiors. It is an ambition of 
trifles, it is true ; but it is still ambition. It frets, it irri- 
tates, but it keeps them alive. The great are the true 
victims of ennui. The more firmly seated their rank, the 
more established their position, the more their life stag- 
nates into insipidity. Constance was at the height of her 
wishes. No one was so courted, so adored. One after 
one, she had humbled and subdued all those who, before 
her marriage, had trampled on her pride — or who, after 
it, had resisted her pretensions : a look from her had be- 
come a triumph, and a smile conferred a rank on its 
receiver. But this empire palled upon her : of too large 
a mind to be satisfied with petty pleasures and unreal dis- 
tinctions, she still felt the something of life was wanting. 
She was not blessed or cursed (as it may be) with children, 
and she had no companion in her husband. There might 
be times in which she regretted her choice, dazzling as 
it had proved; — but she complained not of sorrow, but 
monotony. 

Political intrigue could not fill up the vacuum of which 
Constance daily complained ; and of private intrigue, the 
then purity of her nature was incapable. When people 
have really nothing to do, they generally fall ill upon it ; 
and at length the rich color grew faint upon Lady Erping- 
ham’s cheek ; her form wasted ; the physicians hinted at 
consumption, and recommended a warmer clime. Lord 


GODOLPHIN. 


253 


Erpingham seized at the proposition ; he was fond of 
Italy ; he was bored with England. 

Yery stupid people often become very musical : it is a 
sort of pretension to intellect that suits their capacities. 
Plutarch says somewhere, that the best musical instru- 
ments are made from the jaw-bones of asses. Plutarch 
never made a more sensible observation. Lord Erping- 
ham had of late taken greatly to operas : he talked of 
writing one himself; and not being a performer, he con- 
soled himself by becoming a patron. Italy, therefore, 
presented to him manifold captivations — he thought of 
fiddling, but he talked only of his wife’s health. Amid 
the regrets of the London world, they made their arrange- 
ments, and prepared to set out at the end of the season 
for the land of Paganini and Julius Ceesar. 

Two nights before their departure, Lady Erpingham 
gave a farewell party to her more intimate acquaintance. 
Saville, who always contrived to be well with every one 
who was worth the trouble it cost him, was of course 
among the guests. Years had somewhat scathed him 
since he last appeared on our stage. Women had ceased 
to possess much attraction for his jaded eyes : gaming and 
speculation had gradually spread over the tastes once 
directed to other pursuits. His vivacity had deserted him 
in great measure, as years and infirmity began to stagnate 
and knot up the current of his veins; but conversation 
still possessed for and derived from him its wonted attrac- 
tion. The sparkling jeu d’esprit had only sobered down 
into the quiet sarcasm ; and if his wit rippled less freshly 

22 


254 


GODOLPHIN. 


to the breeze of the present moment, it was colored more 
richly by the glittering sands which rolled down from 
the experience that overshadowed the current. For the 
wisdom of the worldly is like the mountains that, sterile 
without, conceal within them unprofitable ore : only the 
filings and particles escape to the daylight and sparkle in 
the wave ; the rest wastes idly within. The Pactolus 
takes but the sand-drifts from the hoards lost to use in 
the Tmolus. 

“And how,” said Saville, seating himself by Lady Erp- 
ingham, — “ how shall we bear London when you are gone ? 
When society — the everlasting draught — had begun to pall 
upon us, you threw your pearl into the cup ; and now we 
are grown so luxurious, that we shall never bear the wine 
without the pearl.” 

“But the pearl gave no taste to the wine: it only dis- 
solved itself — idly, and in vain.” 

“Ah, my dear Lady Erpingham, the dullest of us, having 
once seen the pearl, could at least imagine that we were 
able to appreciate the subtleties of its influence. Where, 
in this little world of tedious realities, can we find any- 
thing even to imagine about, when you abandon us ?” 

“Nay 1 do you conceive that I am so ignorant of the 
frame-work of society as to suppose that I shall not be 
easily replaced? King succeeds king without reference 
to the merits of either : so, in London, idol follows idol, 
though one be of jewels and the other of brass. Perhaps, 
when I return, I shall find you kneeling to the dull Lady 
A , or worshiping the hideous Lady Z ” 


GODOLPHIN. 


255 


“Le temps assez souvent a rendu legitime 
Ce qui semblait d’abord ne se pouvoir sans crime,” 

answered Saville, with a mock heroic air. “ The fact is, 
that we are an indolent people; the person who succeeds 
the most with us has but to push the most. You know 

how Mrs. , in spite of her red arms, her red gown, 

her city pronunciation, and her city connections, managed 
— by dint of perseverance, alone — to become a dispenser of 
consequence to the very countesses whom she at first could 
scarcely coax into a courtesy. The person who can stand 
ridicule and rudeness has only to desire to become the 
fashion — she or he must be so sooner or later.” 

“ Of the immutability of one thing, among all the 
changes I may witness on my return, at least I am cer- 
tain : no one still will dare to think for himself. The 
great want of each individual is, the want of an opinion 1 
For instance, — who judges of a picture from his own 
knowledge of painting ? Who does not wait to hear what 

Mr. , or Lord (one of the six or seven privileged 

connoisseurs), says of it ? Nay, not only the fate of a 
single picture, but of a whole school of painting, depends 
upon the caprice of some one of the self-elected dictators. 

The king, or the Duke of , has but to love the Dutch 

school and ridicule the Italian, and behold a Raphael will 
not sell, and a Teniers rises into infinite value ! Dutch 
representations of candlesticks and boors are sought after 
with the most rapturous delight; the most disagreeable 
objects of nature become the most worshiped treasures of 
art; and we emulate each other in testifying our exaltation 


258 


GODOLPHIN. 


of taste by contending for the pictured vulgarities by which 
taste itself is the most essentially degraded. In fact, too, 
the meaner the object, the more certain it is with us of 
becoming the rage. In the theater, we run after the farce ; 
in painting, we worship the Dutch school ; in ” 

“ Literature ?” said Saville. 

“No ! our literature still breathes of something noble ; 

but why ? Because books do not always depend upon a 
clique. A book, in order to succeed, does not require the 
opinion of Mr. Saville or Lady Erpingham so much as a 
picture or a ballet.” 

“I am not sure of that,” answered Saville, as he with- 
drew presently afterward to a card-table, to share in the 
premeditated plunder of a young banker, who was proud 
of the honor of being ruined by persons of rank. 

In another part of the rooms, Constance found a certain 
old philosopher, whom I will call David Mandeville. There 
was something about this man that always charmed those 
who had sense enough to be discontented with the ordinary 
inhabitants of the Microcosm — Society. The expression 
of his countenance was different from that of others: there 
was a breathing goodness in his face — an expansion of 
mind on his forehead. You perceived at once that he did 
not live among triflers, nor agitate himself with trifles. 
Serenity beamed from his look — but it was the serenity of 
thought. Constance sat down by him. 

“Are you not sorry,” said Mandeville, “to leave Eng- 
land ? — You, who have made yourself the center of a circle 
which, for the varieties of its fascination, has never per- 


GODOLPIIIN. 


25 f 


haps been equaled in this country ? Wealth — rank — even 
wit — others might assemble round them : but none ever 
before convened into one splendid galaxy all who were 
eminent in art, famous in letters, wise in politics, and even 
(for who but you were ever above rivalship ?) attractive in 
beauty. I should have thought it easier for us to fly from 
the Armida, than for the Armida to renounce the scene of 
her enchantment — the scene in which De Stael bowed to 
the charms of her conversation, and Byron celebrated those 
of her person.” 

We may conceive the spell Constance had cast around 
her, when even philosophy (and Mandeville of all philos- 
ophers) had learned to flatter : but his flattery was sin- 
cerity. 

“Alas!” said Constance, sighing, “even if your compli- 
ment were altogether true, you have mentioned nothing 
that should cost me regret. Vanity is one source of hap- 
piness, but it does not suffice to recompense us for the 
absence of all others. In leaving England, I leave the 
scene of everlasting weariness : I am the victim of a feel- 
ing of sameness, and I look with hope to the prospect of 
change.” 

“Poor thing!” said the old philosopher, gazing mourn- 
fully on a creature who, so resplendent with advantages, 
yet felt the crumpled rose-leaf more than the luxury of the 
couch. “ Wherever you go, the same polished society will 
present to you the same monotony. All courts are alike : 
men have change in action ; but to women of your rank, 
all scenes are alike You must not look without for an 

22* R 


258 


GODOLPIIIN. 


object — you must create one within. To be happy we 
must render ourselves independent of others.” 

“ Like all philosophers, you advise the Impossible,” said 
Constance. 

“How so? Have not the generality of your sex their 
peculiar object? One has the welfare of her children; 
another the interest of her husband ; a third makes a pas- 
sion of economy ; a fourth of extravagance ; a fifth of 
fashion ; a sixth of solitude. Your friend yonder is al- 
ways employed in nursing her own health : hypochondria 
supplies her with an object ; she is really happy because 
she fancies herself ill. Every one you name has an object 
in life that drives away ennui, save yourself.” 

“I have one too,” said Constance, smiling, “but it does 
not fill up all the space of time. The intervals between 
the acts are longer than the acts themselves.” 

“Is your object religion ?” asked Mandeville, simply. 

Constance was startled: the question was novel. “I 
fear not,” said she, after a moment’s hesitation, and with a 
downcast face. 

“As I thought,” returned Mandeville. “ Now listen. 
The reason why you feel weariness more than those around 
you is solely because your mind is more expansive. Small 
minds easily find objects : trifles amuse them ; but a high 
soul covets things beyond its daily reach : trifles occupy 
its aim mechanically ; the thought still wanders restless. 
This is the case with you. Your intellect preys upon it- 
self. You would have been happier if your rank had been 
less;” Constance winced — (she thought of Godolphin) • 


G 0 1) 0 L P II I N. 


259 


‘ for then you would have been ambitious, and aspired to 
the very rank that now palls upon you.” Mandeville con- 
tinued : 

“ You women are at once debarred from public life, and 
yet influence it. You are the prisoners, and yet the des- 
pots of society. Have you talents ? it is criminal to in- 
dulge them in public : and thus, as talent cannot be stifled, 
it is misdirected in private : you seek ascendency over 
your own limited circle ; and what should have been 
genius degenerates into cunning. Brought up from your 
cradles to dissembling, your most beautiful emotions, your 
finest principles, are always tinctured with artifice. As 
your talents, being stripped of their wings, are driven to 
creep along the earth, and imbibe its mire and clay ; so 
are your affections perpetually checked and tortured into 
conventional paths, and a spontaneous feeling is punished 
as a deliberate crime. You are untaught the broad and 
sound principles of life : all that you know of morals are 
its decencies and forms. Thus you are incapable of esti- 
mating the public virtues and the public deficiencies of a 
brother or a son ; and one reason why we have no Brutus, 
is because you have no Portia. Turkey has its seraglio 
for the person; but Custom, in Europe, has also a seraglio 
for the mind.” 

Constance smiled at the philosopher’s passion ; but she 
was a woman, and she was moved by it. 

“Perhaps,” said she, “in the progress of events, the 
state of the women may be improved as well as that of the 

men.” 


260 


GODOLPHIN. 


‘Doubtless, at some future stage of the world. And 
believe me, Lady Erpingham, politician and schemer as 
you are, that no legislative reform alone will improve 
mankind : it is the social state which requires reforma- 
tion.” 

“But you asked me, some minutes since,” said Con- 
stance, after a pause, “if the object of my pursuit was 
religion. I disappointed but not surprised you by my 
answer. 

“ Yes : you grieved me, because, in your case, religion 
would alone fill the dreary vacuum of your time. For, 
with your enlarged and cultivated mind, you would not 
view the grandest of earthly questions in a narrow and 
sectarian light. You would not think religion consisted 
in a sanctified demeanor, in an ostentatious alms-giving, 
in a harsh judgment of all without the pale of your 
opinions. You would behold in it a benign and harmo- 
nious system of morality, which takes from ceremony 
enough not to render it tedious but impressive. The 
school of the Bayles and Yoltaires is annihilated. Men 
begin now to feel that to philosophize is not to sneer. In 
Doubt, we are stopped short at every outlet beyond the 
Sensual. In Belief, lies the secret of all our valuable ex- 
ertion. Two sentiments are enough to preserve even the 
idlest temper from stagnation — a desire and a hope. What 
then can we say of the desire to be useful, and the hope to 
be immortal ?” 

This was language Constance had not often heard be- 
fore, nor was it frequent in the lips of him who now uttered 


GODOLPHIN. 


261 


it. But an interest in the fate and happiness of one in 
whom he saw so much to admire, had made Mandeville 
anxious that she should entertain some principle which he 
could also esteem. And there was a fervor, a sincerity, in 
his voice and manner, that thrilled to the very heart of 
Lady Erpingham. She pressed his hand in silence. She 
thought afterward over his words ; but worldly life is not 
easily accessible to any lasting impressions save those of 
vanity and love. Religion has two sources; the habit of 
early years, or the process of after-thought. But to Con- 
stance had not been fated the advantage of the first; and 
how can deep thought of another world be a favorite 
employment with the scheming woman of this? 

This is the only time that Mandeville appears in this 
work : a type of the rarity of the intervention of religious 
wisdom on the scenes of real life I 

“By- the- way,” said Saville, as in departing he encoun- 
tered Constance by the door, and made his final adieus; 
“by-the-way, you will perhaps meet, somewhere in Italy, 
my old young friend, Percy Godolphin. He has not been 
pleased to prate of his whereabout to me ; but I hear that 
he has been seen lately at Naples.” 

Constance colored, and her heart beat violently; but 
she answered indifferently, and turned away. 

The next morning they set off for Italy. But within one 
week from that day, what a change awaited Constance I 


262 


GODOLPIIIN. 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

AMBITION VINDICATED — THE HOME OF GODOLPIIIN AND LUCILLA — - 
LUCILLA’S MIND THE EFFECT OF HAPPY LOVE ON FEMALE TAL- 
ENT THE EVE OF FAREWELL LUCILLA ALONE TEST OF A 

woman’s affection. 

O much-abused and highly-slandered passion I — Pas- 
sion rather of the soul than the heart: hateful to the 
pseudo-moralist, but viewed with favoring, though not un- 
discriminating eyes by the true philosopher : bright-winged 
and august ambition ! It is well for fools to revile thee, 
because thou art liable, like other utilities, to abuse ! The 
wind uproots the oak — but for every oak it uproots, it 
scatters a thousand acorns. Ixion embraced the cloud, 
but from the embrace sprang a hero. Thou, too, hast thy 
fits of violence and storm ; but without thee, life would 
stagnate : — thou, too, embracest thy clouds; but even thy 
clouds have the demigods for their offspring 1 

It was the great and prevailing misfortune of Godol- 
phin s life, that he had early taught himself to be superior 
to exertion. His talents, therefore, only preyed on him- 
self; and instead of the vigorous and daring actor of the 
world, he was alternately the indolent sensualist or the 
solitary dreamer. He did not view the stir of the great 
Babel as a man with a wholesome mind should do ; and 
thus from his infirmities we draw a moral. The moral is 


GODOLPHIN. 


263 


not the worse, in that it opposes the trite moralities of 
those who would take from action its motive : the men of 
genius, who are not also men of ambition, are either hu- 
morists, or visionaries, or hypochondriacs. 

By the side of one of the Italian lakes, Godolphin and 
Lucilla fixed their abode ; and here the young idealist for 
some time imagined himself happy. Never until now so 
fond of nature as of cities, he gave himself up to the en- 
chantment of the Eden around him. He spent the long 
sunny hours of noon on the smooth lake, or among the 
sheltering trees by which it was encircled. The scenes he 
had witnessed in the world became to him the food of 
quiet meditation, and for the first time in his life thought 
did not weary him with its sameness. 

When his steps turned homeward, the anxious form of 
Lucilla waited for him : her eye brightened at his ap- 
proach, her spirit escaped restraint and bounded into joy : 
and Godolphin, touched by her delight, became eager to 
witness it ; he felt the magnet of a Home. Yet as the 
first enthusiasm of passion died away, he could not but be 
sensible that Lucilla was scarcely a companion. Her fancy 
was indeed lively, and her capacity acute ; but experience 
had set a confined limit to her ideas. She had nothing 
save love, and a fitful temperament, upon which she could 
draw for conversation. Those whose education debars 
them from deriving instruction from things, have in gen- 
eral the power to extract amusement from persons : — they 
can talk of the ridiculous Mrs. So-and-so, or the absurd 
Mr. Blank. But our lovers saw no society ; and thus 


264 


GODOLPIIIN. 


their commune was thrown entirely on their internal re- 
sources. 

There was always that in the peculiar mind of Godol- 
phin which was inclined toward ideas too refined and sub- 
tile even for persons of cultivated intellect. If Constance 
could scarcely comprehend the tone of his character, we 
may believe that to Lucilla he was wholly a mystery. 
This, perhaps, enhanced her love, but the consciousness 
of it disappointed his. He felt that what he considered 
the noblest faculty he possessed were unappreciated. He 
was sometimes angry with Lucilla that she loved only 
those qualities in his character which he shared with the 
rest of mankind. His speculative and Hamlet-like tem- 
per — (let us here take Goethe’s view of Hamlet, and com- 
bine a certain weakness with the finer traits of the royal 
dreamer) — perpetually deserted the solid world, and flew 
to aerial creations. He could not appreciate the present. 
Had Godolphin loved Lucilla as he once thought that he 
should love her, the beauties of her character would have 
blinded him to its defects ; but his passion had been too 
sudden to be thoroughly grounded. It had arisen from 
the knowledge of her affection — not grown step by step 
from the natural bias of his own. Between the interval 
of liking and possession, love (to be durable) should pass 
through many stages. The doubt, the fear, the first pres- 
sure of the hand, the first kiss, — each should be an epoch 
for remembrance to cling to. In moments of after-cool- 
ness or anger, the mind should fly from the sated present 
to the million tender and freshening associations of the 


GODOLPHIN. 


2C5 


past. With these associations the affection renews its 
youth. How vast a store of melting reflections, how 
countless an accumulation of the spells that preserve con- 
stancy, does that love forfeit, in which the memory only 
commences with possession ! 

And the more delicate and thoughtful our nature, the 
more powerful are these associations. Do they not con- 
stitute the immense difference between the love and the 
intrigue ? All things that savor of youth make our most 
exquisite sensations, whether to experience or recall : — 
thus, in the seasons of the year, we prize the spring; and 
in the effusions of the heart, the courtship. 

Beautiful, too, and tender — wild and fresh in her tender- 
ness — as Lucilla was, there was that in her character, in 
addition to her want of education, which did not wholly 
accord with Godolphin’s preconception of the being his 
fancy had conjured up. His calm and profound nature 
desired one in whom he could not only confide, but, as it 
were, repose. Thus one great charm that had attracted 
him to Constance was the evenness and smoothness of her 
temper. But the self-formed mind of Lucilla was ever in 
a bright, and to him a wearying agitation; — tears and 
smiles perpetually chased each other. Not comprehend- 
ing his character, but thinking only and wholly of him, 
she distracted herself with conjectures and suspicions, 
which she was too ingenuous and too impassioned to con- 
ceal. After watching him for hours, she would weep that 
he did not turn from his books or his reverie to search 
also for her, with eyes equally yearning and tender as her 
23 


266 


GODOLPHIN. 


own. The fear in absence, the absorbed devotion when 
present, that absolutely made her existence, — she was 
wretched because he did not reciprocate with the same 
intensity of soul. She could conceive nothing of love but 
that which she felt herself; and she saw, daily and hourly, 
that in that love he did not sympathize ; and therefore she 
embittered her life by thinking that he did not return her 
affection. 

“You wrong us both,” said he, in answer to her 
tearful accusations; “but our sex love differently from 
yours.” 

“Ah,” she replied, “I feel that love has no varieties: 
there is but one love, but there may be many counter- 
feits.” 

Godolphin smiled to think how the untutored daughter 
of nature had unconsciously uttered the sparkling aphorism 
of the most artificial of maxim-makers.* Lucilla saw the 
smile, and her tears flowed instantly. 

“Thou mockest me.” 

“ Thou art a little fool,” said Godolphin, kindly, and he 
kissed away the storm. 

And this was ever an easy matter. There was nothing 
unfeminine or sullen in Lucilla’s irregulated moods; a 
kind word — a kind caress — allayed them in an instant, and 
turned the transient sorrow into sparkling delight. But 
they who know how irksome is the perpetual trouble of 
conciliation to a man meditative and indolent like Godol- 


* Rochefoucauld. 


GODOLPHIN. 


2 6t 


pbin, will appreciate the pain that even her tenderness 
occasioned him. 

There is one thing very noticeable in women when they 
have once obtained the object of their life — the sudden 
check that is given to the impulses of their genius I — Con* 
tent to have found the realization of their chief hope, they 
do not look beyond to other but lesser objects, as they 
had been wont to do before. Hence we see so many who, 
before marriage, strike us with admiration, from the vivid- 
ness of their talents, and after marriage settle down into 
the mere machine. We wonder that we ever feared, while 
we praised, the brilliancy of an intellect that seems now 
never to wander from the limits of house and hearth. So 
with poor Lucilla; her restless mind and ardent genius 
had once seized on every object within their reach: — she 
had taught herself music; she had learned the colorings 
and lines of art; not a book came in her way, but she 
would have sought to extract from it a new idea. But 
she was now with Godolphin, and all other occupations 
for thought were gone ; she had nothing beyond his love 
to wish for, nothing beyond his character to learn. He 
was the circle of hope, and her heart its center ; all lines 
were equal to that heart, so that they touched him. It is 
clear that this devotion prevented her, however, from fit- 
ting herself to be his companion; she did not seek to 
accomplish herself, but to study him : thus in her extreme 
love was another reason why that love was not adequately 
returned. 

But Godolphin felt all the responsibility that he had 


268 


GODOLPHIN. 


taken on himself. He felt how utterly the happiness of 
this poor and solitary child — for a child she was in char- 
acter, and almost in years — depended upon him. He 
roused himself, therefore, from his ordinary selfishness, 
and rarely, if ever, gave way to the irritation which she 
unknowingly but constantly kept alive. The balmy and 
delicious climate, the liquid serenity of the air, the ma- 
jestic repose with which Nature invested the loveliness 
that surrounded their home, contributed to soften and 
calm his mind. And he had persuaded Lucilla to look 
without despair upon his occasional although short ab- 
sences. Sometimes he passed* two or three weeks at 
Rome, sometimes at Naples or Florence. He knew so 
well how necessary such intervals of absence are to the 
preservation of love, to the defeat of that satiety which 
creeps over us with custom, that he had resolutely en- 
forced it as a necessity, although always under the ex- 
cuse of business — a plea that Lucilla could understand 
and not resist ; for the word business seemed to her like 
destiny — a call that, however odious, we cannot disobey. 
At first, indeed, she was disconsolate at the absence only 
of two days ; but when she saw how eagerly her lover re- 
turned to her, with what a fresh charm he listened to her 
voice or her song, she began to confess that even in the 
evil might be good. 

By degrees he accustomed her to longer intervals ; and 
Lucilla relieved the dreariness of the time by the thou- 
sand little plans and surprises with which women delight 
in receiving the beloved wanderer after absence. His de- 


GODOLPHIN. 


26 & 

parture was a signal for a change in the house, the gar- 
dens, the arbor ; and when she was tired with these occu- 
pations, she was not forbidden at least to write to him and 
receive his letters. Daily intoxication 1 and men’s words 
are so much kinder when written, than they are when ut- 
tered ! Fortunately for Lucilla, her early habits, and her 
strange qualities of mind, rendered her independent of com- 
panionship and fond of solitude. 

Often Godolphin, who could not conceive how persons 
without education could entertain themselves, taking pity 
on her loneliness and seclusion, would say : 

“But how, Lucilla, have you passed this long day, that 
I have spent away from you ? — among the woods or on 
the lake ?” 

And Lucilla, delighted to recount to him the history of 
her hours, would go over each incident, and body forth 
every thought that had occurred to her, with a grave and 
serious minuteness that evinced her capabilities of dispens- 
ing with the world. 

In this manner they passed somewhat more than two 
years; and, in spite of the human alloy, it was perhaps 
the happiest period of Godolphin’s life, and the* one that 
the least disappointed his too-exacting imagination. Lu- 
cilla had had one daughter, but she died a few weeks after 
birth. She wept over the perished flower, but was not 
inconsolable ; for, before its loss, she had taught herself to 
think no affliction could be irremediable that did not hap- 
pen to Godolphin. Perhaps Godolphin was the more 
grieved of the two; men of his character are fond of the 
23 * 


210 


GODOLPHIN 


occupation of watching the growth of minds : they put in 
practice their chimeras of education. Happy child, to 
have escaped an experiment ! 

It was the eve before one of Godolphin’s periodical ex- 
cursions, and it was Rome that he proposed to visit ; Go- 
dolphin had lingered about the lake until the sun had set ; 
and Lueilla, grown impatient, went forth to seek him. 
The day had been sultry, and now a somber and breath- 
less calm hung over the deepening eve. The pines, those 
gloomy children of the forest, which shed something of 
melancholy and somewhat of sternness over the brighter 
features of an Italian landscape, drooped heavily in the 
breezeless air. As she came on the border of the lake, 
its waves lay dark and voiceless; only, at intervals, the 
surf, fretting along the pebbles, made a low and dreary 
sound, or from the trees some lingering songster sent forth 
a shrill and momentary note, and then again all became 

“An atmosphere without a breath, 

A silence sleeping there.” 

There was a spot where the trees, receding in a ring, 
left some hare and huge fragments of stone uncovered by 
verdure. It was the only spot around that rich and luxu- 
riant scene that was not in harmony with the soft spirit of 
the place : might I indulge a fanciful comparison, I should 
say that it was like one desolate and gray remembrance in 
the midst of a career of pleasure. On this spot Godolphin 
now stood alone, looking along the still and purple waters 
that lay before him. Lueilla, with a light step, climbed 


0 0 DOLPHIN. 


271 


the rugged stones, and, touching his shoulder, reproached 
him with a tender playfulness for his truancy. 

“ Lucilla,” said he, when peace was restored, “what 
impressions does this dreary and prophetic pause of 
nature, before the upgathering of the storm, create iu 
you ? Does it inspire you with melancholy, or thought, 
or fear ?” 

“I see my star,” answered Lucilla, pointing to a far and 
solitary orb, which hung islanded in a sea of cloud, that 
swept slowly and blackly onward : — “I see my star, and I 
think more of that little light than of the darkness around 
it.” 

“But it will presently be buried among the clouds,” said 
Godolphin, smiling at that superstition which Lucilla had 
borrowed from her father. 

“But the clouds pass away, and the star endures.”' 

“You are of a sanguine nature, my Lucilla.” Lucilla 
sighed. 

“ Why that sigh, dearest ?” 

“Because I am thinking how little even those who love 
us most, know of us ! 1 never tell my disquiet and sorrow. 
There are times when thou wouldst not think me too warmly 
addicted to hope !” 

“And what, poor idler, have you to fear ?” 

“Hast thou never felt it possible that thou couldst love 
me less ?” 

“ Never 1” 

Lucilla raised her large searching eyes and gazed eagerly 
on his face, but in its calm features and placid brow she saw 


GODOLPHIN. 


272 


no ground for augury, whether propitious or evil. She 
turned away. 

“I cannot think, Lueilla,” said Godolphin, “that you 
ever direct those thoughts of yours, wandering although 
they be, to the future. Do they ever extend to the space 
of some ten or twenty years ?” 

“No. But one year may contain the whole history of 
my future.” 

As she spoke, the clouds gathered together round the 
solitary star to which Lueilla had pointed. The storm 
was at hand; they felt its approach, and turned home- 
ward. 

There is something more than ordinarily fearful in the 
tempests that visit those soft and garden climes. The un- 
frequency of such violent changes in the mood of nature 
serves to appall us as with an omen; it is like a sudden 
affliction in the midst of happiness — or a wound from the 
hand of one we love. For the stroke for which we are not 
prepared we have rather despondency than resistance. 

As they reached their home, the heavy rain-drops began 
to fall. They stood for some minutes at the casement, 
watching the coruscations of the lightning as it played 
over the black and heavy waters of the lake. Lueilla, 
whom the influences of nature always strangely and mys- 
teriously affected, clung pale and almost trembling to 
Godolphin; but even in her fear there was delight in 
being so near to him, in whose love alone she thought 
there was protection. Oh! what luxury so dear to a 
woman as is the sense of dependence ! Poor Lueilla I it 


GODOLPHIN. 


273 


was the last evening she ever spent with one whom sho 
worshiped so entirely. 

Godolphin remained up longer than Lucilla : when he 
joined her in her room, the storm had ceased ; and he 
found her standing by the open window, and gazing on 
the skies that were now bright and serene. Far in the 
deep stillness of midnight crept the waters of the lake, 
hushed once more into silence, and reflecting the solemn 
and unfathomable stars. That chain of hills, which but 
to name awakens countless memories of romance, stretched 
behind — their blue and dim summits melting into the skies, 
and over one, higher than the rest, paused the new-risen 
moon, silvering the firs beneath, and farther down, break- 
ing, with one long and yet mellower track of light, over 
the waters of the lake. 

As Godolphin approached, he did so, unconsciously, 
with a hushed and noiseless step. There is something in 
the quiet of nature like worship; it is as if, from the 
breathless heart of Things, went up a prayer or a homage 
to the Arch-Creator. One feels subdued by a stillness so 
utter and so august; it extends itself to our own sensa- 
tions, and deepens into an awe. 

Both, then, looked on in silence, indulging it may be 
different thoughts. At length, Lucilla said softly : “ Tell 
me, hast thou really no faith in my father’s creed ? Are the 
stars quite dumb ? Is there no truth in their movements, 
no prophecy in their luster?” 

“My Lucilla, reason and experience tell us that the 
astrologers nurse a dream that has no reality.” 

23 * 


S 


274 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ Reason! well ! — Experience! — why, did not thy father’s 
mortal illness hurry thee from home at the very time in 
which mine foretold thy departure and its cause ? I was 
then but a child ; yet I shall never forget the paleness of 
thy cheek when my father uttered his prediction.” 

“I, too, was almost a child then, Lucilla.” 

“ But that prediction was verified ?” 

“ It was so; but how many did Yolktman utter that 
were never verified ? In true science there are no chances 
— no uncertainties.” 

“And my father,” said Lucilla, unheeding the answer, 
“always foretold that thy lot and mine were to be en- 
twined.” 

“And the prophecy, perhaps, disposed you to the fact. 
You might never have loved me, Lucilla, if your thoughts 
had not been driven to dwell upon me by the predic- 
tion.” 

“Nay; I thought of thee before I heard the pro- 
phecy.” 

“But your father foretold me, dearest, cross and dis- 
appointment in my love — was he not wrong? am I not 
blest with you ?” 

Lucilla threw herself into her lover’s arms, and, as she 
kissed him, murmured, “Ah, if I could make thee happy!” 

The next day, Godolphin departed for Rome. Lucilla 
was more dejected at his departure than she had been even 
in his earliest absence. The winter was now slowly ap- 
proaching, and the weather was cold and dreary. That 
year it was unusually rainy and tempestuous, and as the 


GODOLPIIIN 


275 


wild gusts howled around her solitary home — how solitary 
now ! — or she heard the big drops hurrying down on the 
agitated lake, she shuddered at her own despondent 
thoughts, and dreaded the gloom and loneliness of the 
lengthened night. For the first time since she had lived 
with Godolphin she turned, but disconsolately, to the com- 
pany of books. 

Works of all sorts filled their home, but the spell that 
once spoke to her from the page was broken. If the book 
was not of love, it possessed no interest; — if of love, she 
thought the description both tame and false. No one ever 
painted love so as fully to satisfy another: — to some it is 
too florid — to some too commonplace; the god, like other 
gods, has no likeness on earth ; and every wave on which 
the star of passion beams breaks the luster into different 
refractions of light. 

As one day she was turning listlessly over some books 
that had been put aside by Godolphin in a closet, and 
hoping to find one that contained, as sometimes happened, 
his comments or at least his marks — she was somewhat 
startled to find among them several volumes which she re- 
membered to have belonged to her father. Godolphin 
had bought them after Yolktman’s death, and put them 
by as relics of his singular friend, and as samples of the 
laborious and self-willed aberration of the human intel- 
lect. 

Few among these works could Lucilla comprehend, for 
they were chiefly in other tongues than the only two with 
which she was acquainted. But some, among which were 


276 


GODOLPIIIN. 


manuscripts by her father, beautifully written, and cu 
riously ornamented (some of the chief works on the vainer 
sciences are only to be found in manuscript), she could 
oontrive to decipher by a little assistance from her memory, 
in recalling the signs and hieroglyphics which her father 
had often explained to her, and, indeed, caused her to copy 
out for him in his calculations. Always possessing an 
untaxed and unquestioned belief in the astral powers, she 
now took some interest in reading of their mysteries. Her 
father, secretly, perhaps, hoping to bequeath his name to 
the gratitude of some future Hermes, had in his manu- 
scripts reduced into a system many scattered theories of 
others, and many dogmas of his own. Over these, for 
they were simpler and easier than the crabbed and mysti- 
cal speculations in the printed books, she more especially 
pored ; and she was not sorry at finding fresh reasons for 
her untutored adoration of the stars and apparitions of the 
heavens. 

Still, however, these bewildering researches made but a 
small part, comparatively speaking, of the occupation of 
her thoughts. To write to, and hear from, Godolphin had 
become to her more necessary than ever, and her letters 
were fuller and more minute in their details of love than 
even in the period of their first passion. Wouldst thou 
know, if the woman thou lovest still loves thee, trust not 
her spoken words, her present smiles ; examine her letters 

in absence, see if she dwells, as she once did, upon trifles 

but trifles relating to thee. The things which the indifferent 
forget are among the most treasured meditations of love. 


GODOLPHIN. 


m 

But Lucilla was not satisfied with the letters — frequent 
as they were — that she received in answer; they were 
kind, affectionate, but the something was wanting. “ The 
best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.” 
That which the heart most asks, is that which no words 
can convey. Honesty — patriotism — religion — these have 
had their hypocrites for life; — but passion permits only 
momentary dissemblers. 


CHAPTER XXX Y. 


GODOLPHIN AT ROME THE CURE FOR A MORBID IDEALISM HIS 

EMBARRASSMENT IN REGARD TO LUCILLA THE RENCOUNTER WITH 

AN OLD FRIEND — THE COLOSSEUM A SURPRISE. 

Godolphin arrived at Rome: it was thronged with 
English. Among them were some whom he remembered 
with esteem in England. He had grown a little weary of 
his long solitude, and he entered with eagerness into the 
society of those who courted him. He was still an object 
of great interest to the idle ; and as men grow older, they 
become less able to dispense with attention. He was 
pleased to find his own importance, and he tasted the 
sweets of companionship with more gust than he had 
yet done. His talents, buried in obscurity, and uncalled 
forth by the society of Lucilla, were now perpetually 
tempted into action, and stimulated by reward. It had 
never before appeared to him so charming a thing to 

24 


278 


GODOLPHIN. 


shine ; for, before, he had been sated with even that 
pleasure. Now, from long relaxation, it had become new; 
vanity had recovered its nice perception. He was no 
longer so absorbed as he had been by visionary images. 
He had given his fancy food in his long solitude, and with 
its wild co-mate ; and being somewhat disappointed in the 
result, the living world became to him a fairer prospect 
than it had seemed while the world of imagination was 
untried. Nothing more confirms the health of the mind, 
than indulging its favorite infirmity to its owmcure. So 
Goethe, in his memoirs, speaking of Werther, remarks, 
that “the composition of that extravagant work cured 
his character of extravagance. ” 

Godolphin thought often of Lucilla; but perhaps, if the 
truth of his heart were known even to himself, a certain 
sentiment of pain and humiliation was associated with the 
tenderness of his remembrance. With her he had led a 
life, romantic it is true, but somewhat effeminate ; and he 
thought now, surrounded by the gay and freshening tide 
of the world, somewhat mawkish in its romance. He did 
not experience a desire to return to the still lake and the 
gloomy pines; — he felt that Lucilla did not suffice to make 
his world. He would have wished to bring her to Rome ; 
to live with her more in public than he had hitherto done , 
to conjoin, in short, her society, with the more recreative 
dissipation of the world : but there were many obstacles 
to this plan in his fastidious imagination. So new to the 
world, its ways, its fashions, sa .strange and infantine in all 
things, as Lucilla was, he trembled to expose har inex- 


GODOLPHIN. 


279 


perience to the dangers that would beset it. He knew 
that his “friends” would pay very little respect to her re- 
serve ; and that for one so lovely and unhackneyed, the 
snares of the wildest and most subtle adepts of intrigue 
would be set. Godolphin did not undervalue Lucilla’s 
pure and devoted heart ; but he knew that the only sure 
antidote against the dangers of the world is the knowl- 
edge of the world. There was nothing in Lucilla that 
ever promised to attain that knowledge ; her very nature 
seemed to depend on her ignorance of the nature of others. 
Joined to this fear, and a confused sentiment of delicacy 
toward her, a certain remorseful feeling in himself made 
him dislike bringing their connection immediately before 
the curious and malignant world : so much had circum- 
stance, and Lucilla’s own self-willed temper and uncalcu- 
lating love, contributed to drive the poor girl into his 
arms, — and so truly had he chosen the generous not the 
selfish part, until passion and nature were exposed to a 
temptation that could have been withstood by none but 
the adherent to sterner principles than he (the creature of 
indolence and feeling) had ever clung to — that Godolphin, 
viewing his habits — his education — his whole bias and 
frame of mind— the estimates and customs of the world — 
may not, perhaps, be very rigidly judged for the nature of 
his tie to Lucilla. But I do not seek to excuse it, nor did 
he wholly excuse it to himself. The image of Yolktman 
often occurred to him, and always in reproach. Living 
with Lucilla in a spot only trod by Italians, so indulgent 
to love, and where the whisper of shame could never reach 


280 


GODOLPHIN. 


her ear, or awaken his remorse, her state did not, how- 
ever, seem to her or himself degraded, and the purity of 
her girlish mind almost forbade the intrusion of the idea. 
But to bring her into public — among his own countrymen 
— and to feel that the generous and devoted girl, now so 
unconscious of sin, would be rated by English eyes with 
the basest and most abandoned of the sex, — with the glo- 
rifiers in vice or the hypocrites for money — this was a 
thought which he could not contemplate, and which he 
felt he would rather pass his life in solitude than endure. 
But this very feeling gave an embarrassment to his situ- 
ation with Lucilla, and yet more fixedly combined her 
image with that of a wearisome seclusion and an eternal 
ennui. 

From the thought of Lucilla, coupled with its many 
embarrassments, Godolphin turned with avidity to the 
easy enjoyments of life — enjoyments that ask no care and 
dispense with the trouble of reflection. 

But among the visitors to Rome, the one whose sight 
gave to Godolphin the greatest pleasure was his old friend 
Augustus Saville. A decaying constitution, and a pul- 
monary attack in especial, had driven the accomplished 
voluptuary to a warmer climate. The meeting of the two 
friends was quite characteristic : it was at a soiree at an 
English house. Saville had managed to get up a whist- 
table. 

“Look, Saville, there is Godolphin, your old friend !” 
cried the host, who was looking on the game, and waiting 
to cut in. 


GODOLPHIN. 


281 


“Hist!” said Saville; “don’t direct his attention to mo 
until after the odd trick !” 

Notwithstanding this coolness when a point was in ques- 
tion, Saville was extremely glad to meet his former pupil. 
They retired into a corner of the room, and talked over 
the world. Godolphin hastened to turn the conversation 
on Lady Erpingham. 

“Ah !” said Saville, “I see from your questions, and yet 
more your tone of voice, that although it is now several 
years since you met, you still preserve the sentiment — the 
weakness. Ah ! — bah !” 

“Pshaw!” said Godolphin; “I owe her revenge, not 
love. But Erpingham ? Does she love him ? He is hand- 
some.” 

“Erpingham ? What — you have not heard ” 

“ Heard what ?” 

“ Oh, nothing : but, pardon me, they wait for me at the 
card- table. I should like to stay with you, but you know 
one must not be selfish; the table would be broken up 
without me. No virtue without self-sacrifice — eh ?” 

“ But one moment. What is the matter with the Erp- 
inghams ? have they quarreled ?” 

“ Quarreled? — bah ! Quarreled —no ; I dare say she 
likes him better now than ever she did before.” And 
Saville limped away to the table. 

Godolphin remained for some time abstracted and 
thoughtful. At length, just as he was going away, Sa- 
ville, who, having an unplayable hand and^a bad partner, 
24 * 


282 


GODOLPHIN. 


had somewhat lost his interest in the game, looked up and 
beckoned to him. 

“Godolphin, my dear fellow, I am to escort a lady to 
see the lions to-morrow ; a widow — a rich widow ; hand- 
some, too. Do, for charity’s sake, accompany us, or meet 
us at the Colosseum. How well that sounds — eh ? About 
two.” 

Godolphin refused at first, but being pressed, assented. 

Hot surrounded by the lesser glories of modern Rome, 
but girt with the mighty desolation of the old City of 
Romulus, stands the most wonderful monument, perhaps, 
in the world, of imperial magnificence — the Flavian Am- 
phitheater, to which, it has been believed, the colossal 
statue of the worst of emperors gave that name (the Colos- 
seum), allied with the least ennobling remembrances, yet 
giving food to the loftiest thoughts. The least ennobling 
remembrances ; for what can be more degrading than the 
amusements of a degraded people, who reserved meekness 
for their tyrants, and lavished ferocity on their shows? 
From that of the wild beast to that of the Christian mar- 
tyr, blood has been the only sanctification of this temple 
to the Arts. The history of the Past broods like an air 
over those mighty arches; but Memory can find no remi- 
niscence worthy of the spot. The amphitheater was not 
built until history had become a record of the vice and 
debasement of the human race. The Faun and the Dryad 
had deserted the earth ; no sweet superstition, the faith of 
the grotto and the green hill, could stamp with a delicate 
and undying spell the labors of man. Nor could the ruder 


•GODOLPHIN. 


283 


but august virtues of the heroic age give to the tradition 
of the arch and column some stirring remembrance or ex- 
alting thought. Not only the warmth of fancy, but the 
greatness of soul was gone : the only triumph left to 
genius was to fix on its page the gloomy vices which made 
the annals of the world. Tacitus is the Historian of the 
Colosseum. But the very darkness of the past gives to 
the thoughts excited within that immense pile a lofty but 
mournful character. A sense of vastness, for which, as 
we gaze, we cannot find words, but which bequeaths 
thoughts that our higher faculties would not willingly 
forego, creeps within us as we gaze on this Titan relic of 
gigantic crimes forever passed away from the world. 

And not only within the scene, but around the scene, 
what voices of old float upon the air! Yonder the tri- 
umphal arch of Constantine, its Corinthian arcades, and the 
history of Trajan sculptured upon its marble ; the dark and 
gloomy verdure of the Palatine; the ruins of the Palace 
of the Caesars ; the Mount of Fable, of Fame, of Luxury 
(the Three Epochs of Nations) ; the habitation of Saturn; 
ne home of Tully ; the site of the Golden House of Nero ! 
_iOok at your feet, — look around; the waving weed, the 
broken column — Time’s witness, and the Earthquake’s. 
In that contrast between grandeur and decay, — in the un- 
utterable and awful solemnity that, while rife with the 
records of past ages, is sad also with their ravage, you 
have felt the nature of eternity ! 

Through this vast amphitheater, and giving way to such 
meditations, Godolphin passed on alone, the day after his 


284 


GODOLPHIN. 


meeting with Saville ; and at the hour he had promised 
the latter to seek him, he mounted the wooden staircase 
which conducts the stranger to the wonders above the 
arena, and by one of the arches that looked over the still 
pines that slept afar off in the sun of noon, he saw a female 
in deep mourning, whom Saville appeared to be address- 
ing. He joined them; the female turned round, and he 
beheld, pale and saddened, but how glorious still, the face 
of Constance 1 

To him the interview was unexpected, by her foreseen. 
The color flushed over her cheek, the voice sank inaudible 
within. But Godolphin’s emotion was more powerful and 
uncontrolled : violent tremblings literally shook him as he 
stood : he gasped for breath : the sight of the dead re- 
turned to earth would have affected him less. 

In this immense ruin — in the spot where, most of earth, 
man feels the insignificance of an individual life, or of the 
rapid years over which it extends, he had encountered, 
suddenly, the being who had colored all his existence. He 
was reminded at once of the grand epoch of his life, and of 
its utter unimportance. But these are the thoughts that 
would occur rather to us than him. Thought at that 
moment was an intolerable flash that burst on him for an 
instant, and then left all in darkness. He clung to the 
shattered corridor for support. Constance seemed touched 
and surprised by so overwhelming an emotion, and the 
habitual hypocrisy in which women are reared, and by 
which they learn to conceal the sentiments they experi 


GODOLPHIN. 


285 


ence, and affect those they do not, came to her assistance 
and his own. 

“It is many years, Mr. Godolphin,” said she in a col- 
lected but soft voice, “since we met.” 

“Years!” repeated Godolphin, vaguely ; and approach- 
ing her with a slow and faltering step. “Years ! you have 
not numbered them !” 

Saville had retired a few steps on Godolphin^ arrival, 
and had watched with a sardonic yet indifferent smile the 
proof of his friend’s weakness. He now joined Godolphin, 
and said : 

“You must forgive me, my dear Godolphin, for not 
apprising you before of Lady Erpingham’s arrival at 
Rome. But a delight is perhaps the greater for being 
sudden.” 

The word Erpingham thrilled displeasingly through 
Godolphin’s veins; in some measure it restored him to 
himself. He bowed coldly, and muttered a few ceremoni- 
ous words; and while he was yet speaking, some strag- 
glers that had belonged to Lady Erpingham’s party came 
up. Fortunately, perhaps, for the self-possession of both, 
they, the once lovers, were separated from each other. 
But whenever Constance turned her glance to Godolphin, 
she saw those large, searching, melancholy eyes, whose 
power she well recalled, fixed unmovingly on her, as seek- 
ing to read in her cheek the history of the years which had 
ripened its beauties — for another 1 


286 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XXX YI. 


DIALOGUE BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND SAYILLE CERTAIN EVENTS EX* 

PLAINED SAVILLE’!9 APOLOGY FOR A BAD HEART — GODOLPHIN’S 

CONFUSED SENTIMENTS FOR LADY ERPINGHAM. 






“Good Heavens ! Constance Yernon once more free 1” 
“And did you not really know it? Your retreat by the 
lake must have been indeed seclusion. It is seven months 
since Lord Erpingham died.” 

“Do I dream?” murmured Godolphin, as he strode hur- 
riedly to and fro the apartment of his friend. 

Saville, stretched on the sofa, diverted himself with mix- 
ing snulfs on a little table beside him. Nothing is so 
mournfully amusing in life as to see what trifles the most 
striking occurrences to us appear to our friends. 

“But,” said Saville, not looking up, “you seem very 
incurious to know how he died, and where? You must 
learn that Erpingham had two ruling passions — one for 
horses, the other for fiddlers. In setting off for Italy he 
expected, naturally enough, to find the latter, but he 
thought he might as well export the former. He accord- 
ingly filled the vessel with quadrupeds, and the second 
day after landing he diverted the tedium of a foreign clime 
with a gentle ride. He met with a fall, and was brought 
home speechless. The loss of speech was pot of great im 
portance to his acquaintance ; but he died that night, and 


GODOLPHIN. 


287 


the loss of his life was ! — for he gave very fair dinners 

ah, — bah 1” And Saville inhaled the fragrance of a new 
mixture. 

Saville had a very pleasant way of telling a story, par- 
ticularly if it related to a friend’s death, or some such 
agreeable incident. “Poor Lady Erpingham was exceed- 
ingly shocked; and well she might be, for I don’t think 
weeds become her. She came here by slow stages, in 
order that the illustrious Dead might chase away the re- 
membrance of the deceased.” 

“Your heart has not improved, Saville.” 

“ Heart ! What’s that ? Oh ! a thing servant-maids have ? 
and break for John the footman. Heart ! my dear fellow, 
you are turned canter, and make use of words without 
meaning.” 

Godolphin was not prepared for a conversation of this 
order; and Saville, in somewhat a more serious air, con- 
tinued : — “Every person, Godolphin, talks about the world ! 
The world ! it conveys different meanings to each, accord- 
ing to the nature of that circle which makes his world. 
But we all agree in one thing, — the worldliness of the 
world. Now, no man’s world is so void of affection as 
our’s — the polished, the courtly, the great world: the 
higher the air, the more pernicious to vegetation. Our 
very charm, our very fascination, depends upon a certain 
mockery; a subtile and fine ridicule on all persons and 
all things constitutes the essence of our conversation. 
Judge if that tone be friendly to the seriousness of the 
affections. Some poor dog among us marries, and house- 


288 


GODOLPHIN. 


hold plebeianisms corrupt the most refined. Custom at- 
taches the creature to his ugly wife and his squalling 
children ; he grows affectionate, and becomes out of fash- 
ion. But we single men, dear Godolphin, have no one to 
care for but ourselves: the deaths that happen, unlike the 
ties that fall from the married man, do not interfere with 
our domestic comforts. We miss no one to make our tea, 
or give us our appetite-pills before dinner. Our losses are 
not intimate and household. We shrug our shoulders, and 
are not a whit the worse for them. Thus, for want of 
grieving, and caring, and fretting, we are happy enough 
to grow — come, I will use an epithet to please you — hard- 
hearted ! We congeal into philosophy; and are we not 
then wise in adopting this life of isolation and indif- 
ference V ’ 

Godolphin, wrapt in reflection, scarcely heeded the 
voluptuary, but Saville continued : he had grown to 

that height in loneliness that he even loved talking to 

himself. 

“Yes, wise ! For this world is so filled with the selfish, 
that he who is not so labors under a disadvantage. Nor 
are we the worse for our apathy. If we jest at a man’s 

misfortune, we do not do it to his face. Why not out of 

the ill, which is misfortune, extract good, which is amuse- 
ment ? Three men in this room are made cheerful by a 
jest at a broken leg in the next. Is the broken leg the 
worse for it ? No ; but the three men are made merry by 
the jest. Is the jest wicked, then ? Nay, it is a benevo- 
lence. But some cry, ‘Ay, but this habit of disregarding 


GODOLPHIN. 


289 


misfortunes blunts your wills when you have the power to 
relieve them.’ Relieve! was ever such delusion? What 
can we relieve in the vast mass of human misfortunes ? As 
well might we take a drop from the ocean, and cry, 1 Ha, 
ha! we have lessened the sea!’ What are even your pub- 
lic charities? what your best institutions? How few of 
the multitude are relieved at all ; how few of that few re- 
lieved permanently ! Men die, suffer, starve just as soon, 
and just as numerously ; these public institutions are only 
trees for the public conscience to go to roost upon. No, 
my dear fellow, everything I see in the world says, Take 
care of thyself . This is the true moral of life; every one 
who minds it gets on, thrives, and fattens ; they who don’t, 
come to us to borrow money, if gentlemen ; or fall upon 
the parish, if plebeians. I mind it, my dear Godolphin; 
I have minded it all my life ; I am very contented — con- 
tent is the sign of virtue ! — ah, — bah !” 

Yes; Constance was a widow. The hand of her whom 
Percy Godolphin had loved so passionately, and whose 
voice even now thrilled to his inmost heart and awakened 
the echoes that had slept for years, it was once more with- 
in her power to bestow, and within his to demand. What 
a host of emotions this thought gave birth to ! Like the 
coming of the Hindoo god, she had appeared, and lo, there 
was a new world ! “And her look,” he thought, “ was 
kind, her voice full of a gentle promise, her agitation was 
visible. She loves me still. Shall I fly to her feet ? Shall 

I press for hope ? And, oh ! what, what happiness ! 

but Lucilla /” 

25 T 


290 


GODOLPHIN. 


This recollection was indeed a barrier that never failed 
to present itself to every prospect of hope and joy which 
the image of Constance colored and called forth. Even 
for the object of his first love, could he desert one who 
had forsaken all for him, whose life was wrapt up in his 
affection? The very coolness with which he was sensible 
he had returned the attachment of this poor girl made 
him more alive to the duties he owed her. If not bound 
to her by marriage, he considered with a generosity — 
barely, in truth, but justice, yet how rare in the world — 
that the tie between them was sacred, that only death 
could dissolve it. And now that tie was, perhaps, all 
that held him from attaining the dream of his past life 
Absorbed in these ideas, Godolphin contrived to let 
Saville’s unsympathizing discourse glide unheeded along, 
without reflecting its images on the sense, until the name 
of Lady Erpingham again awakened his attention. 

“You are going to her this evening,” said Saville; 
“and you may thank me for that; for I asked you if you 
were thither bound in her hearing, in order to force her 
into granting you an invitation. She only sees her most 
intimate friends — you, me, and Lady Charlotte Deerham. 
Widows are shy of acquaintance during their first affliction. 
I always manage, however, to be among the admitted — 
caustic is good for some wounds.” 

“Nay,” said Godolphin, smiling, “it is your friendly 
disposition that makes them sure of sympathy.” 

“You have hit it. But,” continued Saville, “do you 
think Madame likely to marry again, or shall you your- 


GODOLPHIN. 


291 


self adventure ? Erpingham has left her nearly his whole 
fortune.” 

Irritated and impatient at Saville’s tone, Godolphin 
rose. “ Between you and me,” said Saville, in wishing 
him good-by, “I don’t think she will ever marry again. 
Lady Erpingham is fond of power and liberty ; even the 
young Godolphin — and you are not so handsome as you 
were — will find it a hopeless suit.” 

“Pshaw!” muttered Godolphin, as he departed. But 
the last words of Saville had created a new feeling in his 
breast. It was then possible, nay, highly probable, that 
he might have spared himself the contest he had under- 
gone, and that the choice between Lucilla and Constance 
might never be permitted him. “At all events,” said he, 
almost aloud, “ I will see if this conjecture be true : if Con- 
stance, yet remembering our early love, yet feeling for the 
years of secret pining which her ambition bequeathed me, 
should appear willing to grant me the atonement fate has 
placed within her power, then, then it will be time for this 
self-sacrifice.” 

The social relations of the sex often make men villain- 
ous — they more often make them weak. 


292 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

AN EVENING WITH CONSTANCE. 

Constance’s heart was in her eyes when she saw Godol- 
plain that evening. She had, it is true, as Saville observed, 
been compelled by common courtesy to invite him ; and 
although there was an embarrassment in their meeting, 
who shall imagine that it did not briug to Constance more 
of pleasure than pain ? She had been deeply shocked by 
Lord Erpingham’s sudden death : they had not been con- 
genial minds, but the great have an advantage denied to 
the less wealthy orders. Among the former, a husband 
and wife need not weary each other with constant com- 
panionships; different establishments, different hours, dif- 
ferent pursuits, allow them to pass life in great measure 
apart, so that there is no necessity for hatred, and indiffer- 
ence is the coldest feeling which custom induces. 

Still in the prime of youth, and at the zenith of her 
beauty, Constance was now independent. She was in the 
enjoyment of the wealth and rank her early habits of 
thought had deemed indispensable, and she now for the 
first time possessed the power of sharing them with whom 
she pleased. At this thought how naturally her heart flew 
back to Godolphin 1 And while she now gazed, although 
by stealth, at his countenance, as he sat at a little distance 


GODOLPIIIN. 


293 


from her, and in his turn watched for the tokens of past 
remembrance, she was deeply touched by the change (light 
as it seemed to others) which years had brought to him ; 
and in recalling the emotion he had testified at meeting 
her, she suffered her heart to soften, while it reproached 
her in whispering “Thou art the cause !”— All the fire— 
the ardor of a character not then confirmed, which, when 
she last saw him, spoke in his eye and mien, were gone 

forever. The irregular brilliancy of his conversation 

the earnestness of his air and gesture, were replaced by a 
calm, an even, and melancholy composure. His forehead 
was stamped with the lines of thought; and the hair, 
grown thinner toward the temples, no longer concealed 
by its luxuriance the pale expanse of his brow. The air 
of delicate health which had at first interested her in his 
appearance, still lingered, and gave its wonted and ineffa- 
ble charm to his low voice and the gentle expression of 
his eyes. By degrees, the conversation, at first partial 
and scattered, became more general. Constance and Go- 
dolphin were drawn into it. 

“It is impossible,” said Godolphin, “to compare life in 
a southern climate with that which we lead in colder coun- 
tries. There is an indolence, a laissez aller, a philosophi- 
cal insouciance, produced by living under these warm 
suns, and apart from the ambition of the objects of our 
own nation, which produce at last a state of mind that 
divides us forever from our countrymen. It is like living 
amid perpetual music — a different kind of life — a soft, lazy, 
voluptuous romance of feeling, that indisposes us to action 
25 * 


294 


GODOLPHIN. 


— almost to motion. So far from a sojourn in Italy being 
friendly to the growth of ambition, it nips and almost 
destroys the germ.” 

“ In fact, it leaves us fit for nothing but love,” said 
Saville ; “ an occupation that levels us with the silliest 
part of our species.” 

“ Fools cannot love,” said Lady Charlotte. 

“ Pardon me, love and folly are synonymous in more 
languages than the French,” answered Saville. 

“In truth,” said Godolphin, “the love which you both 
allude to is not worth disputing about.” 

“ What love is ?” asked Saville. 

“First love,” cried Lady Charlotte; “is it not, Mr 
Godolphin ?” 

Godolphin changed color, and his eyes met those of 
Constance. She too sighed and looked down : — Godol- 
phin remained silent. 

“ Nay, Mr. Godolphin, answer me,” said Lady Char- 
lotte ; “ I appeal to you !” 

“First love, then,” said Godolphin, endeavoring to 

speak composedly, “ has this advantage over others it is 

usually disappointed, and regret forever keeps it alive.” 

The tone of his voice struck Constance to the heart. 

Nor did she speak again — save with visible effort during 

the rest of the evening. 




OODOLPHIN. 


295 


CHAPTER XXXYIII. 

Constance’s undimintshed love for godolphin — her remorse 

AND HER HOPE THE CAPITOL THE DIFFERENT THOUGHTS OF 

GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE AT THE VIEW — THE TENDER EX- 
PRESSIONS OF CONSTANCE. 

All that Constance heard from others, of Godolphin’s 
life since they parted, increased her long-nursed interest in 
his fate. His desultory habits, his long absences from cities, 
which were understood to be passed in utter and obscure 
solitude (for the partner of the solitude and its exact spot 
were not known), she coupled with the quiet melancholy 
in his aspect, with his half-reproachful glances toward her- 
self, and with the emotions which he had given vent to in 
their conversation. And of this objectless and unsatisfac- 
tory life she was led to consider herself the cause. With 
a bitter pang she recalled his early words, when he said, 
“My future is in your hands and she contrasted his vivid 

energies his cultivated mind — his high talents — with the 

life which had rendered them^ll so idle to others and un- 
profitable to himself. Few, very few, know how power- 
fully the sentiment that another’s happiness is at her 
control speaks to a woman’s heart. Accustomed to de- 
pendence herself, the feeling that another depends on her 
is the most soothing aliment to her pride. This makes a 
main cause of her love to her children ; they would be 
incomparably less dear to her if they were made independ- 


296 


GODOLPHIN. 


ent of her cares. And years, which had brought the young 
countess acquainted with the nothingness of the world, had 
Roftened and deepened the sources of her affections, in 
proportion as they had checked those of her ambition. 
She could not, she did not, seek to disguise from herself 
that Godolphin yet loved her; she anticipated the hour 
when he would avow that love, and when she might be 
permitted to atone for all of disappointment that her 
former rejection might have brought to him. She felt, 
too, that it would be a noble as well as delightful task, to 
awaken an intellect so brilliant to the natural objects of its 
display ; to call forth into active life his teeming thought, 
and the rich eloquence with which he could convey it. 
Nor in this hope were her more selfish designs, her political 
schemings, and her desire of sway over those whom she 
loved to humble, forgotten ; but they made, however,— to 
be just, — a small part of her meditations. Her hopes 
were chiefly of a more generous order — “I refused thee,” 
she thought, “ when I was poor and dependent — now that 
I have wealth and rank, how gladly will I yield them to 
thy bidding !” 

But Godolphin, as if unconscious of this favorable bias 
of her inclinations, did not warm from his reserve. On 
the contrary, his first abstraction, and his first agitation, 
had both subsided into a distant and cool self-possession 
They met often, but he avoided all nearer or less general 
communication. She saw, however, that his eyes were 
constantly in search of her, and that a slight trembling in 
his voice when he addressed her belied the calmness of his 


GODOLPHIN. 


291 


manner. Sometimes, too, a word, or a touch from her, 
would awaken the ill-concealed emotions — his lips seemed 
about to own the triumph of her and of the past ; but, as 
if by a violent effort, they were again sealed ; and not un- 
often, evidently unwilling to trust his self-command, he 
would abruptly depart. In short, Constance perceived 
that a strange embarrassment, the causes of which she 
could not divine, hung about him, and that his conduct 
was regulated by some secret motive, which did not spring 
from the circumstances that had occurred between them. 
For it was evident that he was not withheld by any resent* 
ment toward her from her former rejection : even his looks t 
his words, had betrayed that he had done more than for- 
give. Lady Charlotte Deerham had heard from Saville 
of their former attachment : she was a woman of the 
world, and thought it but common delicacy to give them 
all occasion to renew it. She always, therefore, took 
occasion to retire from the immediate vicinity of Con- 
stance whenever Godolphin approached, and, as if by 
accident, to leave them the opportunity to be sufficiently 
alone. This was a danger that Godolphin had, however, 
hitherto avoided. One day fate counteracted prudence, 
and a conference ensued, which perplexed Constance and 
tried severely the resolution of Godolphin. 

They went together to the Capitol, from whose height 
is beheld, perhaps, the most imposing landscape in the 
world. It was a sight pre-eminently calculated to arouse 
and inspire the ambitious and working mind of the young 

•ountess. 

25 * 


298 


GODOLPIIIN. 


“ Do you think, ” said she to Godolphin, who stood be- 
eide her, “ that there lives any one who could behold these 
countless monuments of eternal glory, and not sigh to 
recall the triteness, or rather burn to rise from the level of 
our ordinary life ?” 

'‘Nay,” said Godolphin ; “to you the view maybe an 
inspiration, to others a warning. The arch and the ruin 
you survey, speak of change yet more eloquently than 
glory. Look on the spot where once was the temple of 
Romulus: — there stands the little church of an obscure 
saint. Just below you is the Tarpeian Rock : we cannot 
see it ; it is hidden from us by a crowd of miserable houses. 
Along the ancient plain of the Campus Martius behold the 
numberless spires of a new religion, and the palaces of a 
modern race 1 Amid them you see the triumphal columns 
of Trajan and Marcus Antoninus ; but whose are the 
figures that crown their summits ? St. Peter’s and St. 
Paul’s ! And this awful wilderness of men’s labors — this 
scene and token of human revolutions — inspires you with 
a love of glory; to me it proves its nothingness. An 
irresistible — a crushing sense of the littleness and brief 
life of our most ardent and sagacious achievements, seems 
to me to float like a voice over the place 1” 

“And are you still, then,” said Constance, with a half 
sigh, “ dead to all but the enjoyment of the present mo- 
ment ?” 

“ No,” replied Godolphin, in a low and trembling voice: 
u I am not dead to the regret of the past 1” 

Constance blushed deeply ; but Godolphin, as if feeling 


GODOLPHIN. 


299 


he had committed himself too far, continued in a hurried 
tone: — “Let us turn our eyes,” said he, “yonder among 
the olive«groves. There, 

* Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife/ 

were the summer retreats of Rome’s brightest and most, 
enduring spirits. There was the retirement of Horace 
and Maecenas; there Brutus forgot his harsher genius; 
and there the inscrutable and profound Augustus indulged 
in those graceful relaxations — those sacrifices to wit, and 
poetry, and wisdom, which have made us do so unwilling 
and reserved a justice to the crimes of his earlier and the 
hypocrisy of his later years. Here, again, is a reproach 
to your ambition,” added Godolphin, smiling; “his ambi- 
tion made Augustus odious : his occasional forgetfulness 
of ambition alone redeems him.” 

“And what, then,” said Constance, “would you consider 
inactivity the happiest life for one sensible of talents higher 
than the common standard ?” 

“ Nay, let those talents be devoted to the discovery of 
pleasures, not the search after labors; the higher our 
talents, the keener our perceptions; the keener our per- 
ceptions, the more intense our capacities for pleasure:* — 
let pleasure, then, be our object. Let us find out what is 
best fitted to give our peculiar tastes gratification, and, 
having found out, steadily pursue it.” 


* I suppose Godolphin by the word pUcuiur * si^nifi^ /vy> 

pines s. 


300 


GODOLPHIN. 


Out on you ! it is a selfish, an ignoble system,” said 
Constance. “You smile— well, I may be unphilosophical, 
I do not deny it. But give me one hour of glory, rather 
than a life of luxurious indolence. Oh, would,” added 

Constance, kindling as she spoke, “that you you, Mr. 

Godolphin,— with an intellect so formed for high accom- 
plishment — with all the weapons and energies of life at 
your command,— would that you could awaken to a more 
worthy estimate— pardon me— of the uses of exertion ! 
Surely, surely you must be sensible of the calls that your 
country, that mankind, have at this epoch of the world 
upon all— all, especially, possessing your advantages and 
powers. Can we pierce one inch beyond the surface of 
society, and not see that great events are hastening to 
their birth ? Will you let those inferior to yourself hurry 
on before you, and sit inactive while they win the reward ? 
Will you have no share in the bright drama that is already 
prepared behind the dark curtain of fate, and which will 
have a world for its spectators ? Ah, how rejoiced, how 
elated with myself I should feel, if I could win over one 
like you to the great cause of honorable exertion !” 

For one instant Godolphin’s eye sparkled, and his pale 
cheek burned— but the transient emotion faded away as he 
answered : 

“Eight years ago, when she who spoke to me was Con- 
stance Vernon, her wish might have moulded me according 
to her will. Now,” and he struggled with emotion, and 
turned away his face,— “ now it is too late !” 

Constance was smitten to the heart. She laid her hand 


GODOLPHIN. 


301 


gently on his arm, and said, in a sweet and soothing tone, 
“ No, Percy, not too late !” 

At that instant, and before Godolphin could reply, they 
were joined by Saville and Lady Charlotte Deerham 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

LUOILLA’s LETTER — THE EFFECT IT PRODUCES ON GODOLPHIN. 

The short conversation recorded in the last chapter 
could not but show to Godolphin the dangerous ground 
on which his fidelity to Lucilla rested. Never before — 
no, not in the young time of their first passion — had Con- 
stance seemed to him so lovely or so worthy of love. Her 
manners now were so much more soft and unreserved than 
they had necessarily been at a period when Constance had 
resolved not to listen to his addresses or her own heart, 
that the only part of her character that had ever repulsed 
his pride, or offended his tastes, seemed vanished forever. 
A more subdued and gentle spirit had descended on her 
surpassing beauty, and the change was of an order that 
Percy Godolphin could especially appreciate. And the 
world, for which he owned reluctantly that she yet lived 
too much, had, nevertheless, seemed rather to enlarge and 
animate the natural nobleness of her mind, than to fritter 
it down to the standard of its common votaries. When 
she spoke he delighted in, even while he dissented from, 

26 


302 


GODOLPIIIN 


the high and bold views which she conceived. He loved 
her indignation of all that was mean and low — her passion 
for all that was daring and exalted. Never was he cast 
down from the height of the imaginative part of his lovej 
by hearing from her lips one petty passion or one sordid 
desire; much about her was erroneous, but all was lofty 
and generous — even in error. And the years that had 
divided them had only taught him to feel more deeply how 
rare was the order of her character, and how impossible it 
was ever to behold her like. All the sentiments, faculties, 
emotions, which, in his affection for Lucilla, had remained 
dormant, were excited into full play the moment he was in 
the presence of Constance. She engrossed no petty por- 
tion — she demanded and obtained the whole empire of 

his soul. And against this empire he had now to con- 
tend ! Torn as he was by a thousand conflicting emotions, 
a letter from Lucilla was suddenly put into his hands ; its 
contents were as follows : 

LUCILLA’S LETTER. 

“ Thy last letter, my love, was so short and hurried, that 
it has not cost me my usual pains to learn it by heart ; nor 
(shall I tell the truth ?) have I been so eager as I once 
was to commit all thy words to my memory. Why, I know 
not, and will guess not, — but there is something in thy 
letters since we parted that chills me; — they throw back 
my heart upon itself. I tear open the seal with so much 
eagerness — thou wouldst smile if thou couldst see me ; and 
when I discover how few are the words upon which I am 
to live for many days, I feel sick and disappointed, and 
lay down the letter. Then I chide myself, and say, ‘At 


GODOLPHIN. 


303 


least these few words will be kind !’— and I spell them one 
by one, not to hurry over my only solace. Alas ! before I 
arrive at the end, I am blinded by my tears ; my love for 
thee, so bounding and full of life, seems frozen and arrested 
at every line. And then I lie down for very weariness, and 
wish to die. 0 God, if the time has come which I have 

always dreaded — if thou shouldst no longer love me ! 

And how reasonable this fear is ! For what am I to thee ? 
How often dost thou complain that I can understand thee 
not — how often dost thou imply that there is much of thy 
nature which I am incapable — unworthy — to learn ! If 
this be so, how natural is it to dread that thou wilt find 
others whom thou wilt fancy more congenial to thee, and 
that absence will only remind thee more of my imper- 
fections ! 

“And yet I think that I have read thee to the letter ; I 
think that my love, which is always following thee, always 
watching thee, always conjecturing thy wishes, must have 
penetrated into every secret of thy heart : only I want 
words to express what I feel, and thou layest the blame 
upon the want of feeling I I know how untutored, how 
ignorant, I must seem to thee ; and sometimes — and lately 
very often — I reproach myself that I have not more dili- 
gently sought to make myself a worthier companion to 
thee. I think if I had the same means as others, I should 
acquire the same facility of expressing my thoughts ; and 
my thoughts thou couldst never blame, for I know that 
they are full of a love to thee which — no — not tho wisest 
— the most brilliant — whom thou mayest see could equal 
even in imagination. But I have sought to mend this de- 
ficiency since we parted ; and I have looked into all the 
books thou hast loved to read, and I fancy that I have im- 
bibed now the same ideas which pleased thee, and in which 
once thou imaginedst I could not sympathize. Yet how 


304 


GOPOLPI1IN. 


mistaken thou hast been I I see, by the marks thou hast 
placed on the page, the sentiments that more especially 
charm thee ; and I know that I have felt them much, oh ! 
how much more deeply and vividly than they are there 
expressed — only they seem to me to have no language : — 
methinks that I have learned the language now. And I 
have taught myself songs thou wilt love to hear when thou 
returnest home to me ; and I have practiced music, and I 
think — nay, I am sure, that time will not pass so heavily 
with thee as when thou wast last here. 

“And when shall I see thee again ? — forgive me if I 
press thee to return. Thou hast stayed away longer than 
thou hast been wont, but that I would not heed ; it is not 
the number of days, but the sensations with which I have 
counted them, that make me pine for thy beloved voice, 
and long once more to behold thee. Never before did I 
so feel thy absence, never before was I so utterly wretched. 
A secret voice whispers me that we are parted forever. I 
cannot withstand the omens of my own heart. When my 
poor father lived, I did not, child as I was, partake of those 
sentiments with which he was wont to say the stars inspired 
us. I could not see in them the boders of fear and the 
preachers of sad tidings ; they seemed to me only full of 
serenity and tenderness, and the promise of enduring love ! 
And ever when I looked on them, I thought of thee; and 
thy image to me then, as thou knowest it was from child- 
hood, was bright with unimaginable but never melancholy 
spells. But now, although I love thee so far more power- 
fully, I cannot divest the thoughts of thee from a certain 
sadness : and so the stars, which are like thee, which are 
full of thee, have a sadness also ! And this, the bed, where 
every morning I stretch my arms for thee, and find thee 
not, and have yet to live through the day, and on which I 
now write this letter to thee, — for I, who used to rise with 


GODOLPHIN. 


305 


the sun, am now too dispirited not to endeavor to cheat 
the weary day, — I have made them place nearer to the 
window; and I look out upon the still skies every night, 
and have made a friend of every star I see. I question it 
of thyself, and wonder, when thou lookest at it, if thou 
hast any thought of me 1 I love to look upon the heavens 
much more than upon the earth; for the trees, and the 
waters, and the hills around, thou canst not behold ; but 
the same heaven which I survey is above thee also; and 
this, our common companion, seems in some measure to 
unite us. And I have thought over my father’s lore, and 
have tried to learn it; nay, thou mayest smile, but it is 
thy absence that has taught me superstition. 

“But tell me, dearest, kindest, tell me when — oh, when 
wilt thou return ? Return only this once — if but for a day, 
and I will never persecute thee again. Truant as thou art, 
thou shalt have full liberty for life. But I cannot tell thee 
how sad and heavy I am grown, and every hour knocks 
at my heart like a knell ! Come back to thy poor Lucilla 
— if only to see what joy is ! Come — I know thou wilt 1 
But should anything I do not foresee detain thee, fix at 
least the day — nay, if possible, the hour — when we shall 
meet, and let the letter which conveys such happy tidings 
be long, and kind, and full of thee, as thy letters once were. 
I know I weary thee, but I cannot help it. I am weak, 
and dejected, and cast down, and have only heart enough 
to pray for thy return.” 

“You have conquered — you have conquered, Lucilla!” 
said Godolphin, as he kissed this wild and reproachfu. 
letter, and thrust it into his bosom; “and I — I — will be 
wretched rather than you shall be so !” 

His heart rebuked him even for that last sentence. This 
26* U 


306 


GODOLPHIN. 


pure and devoted attachment, was it indeed an unhappi- 
ness to obtain, and a sacrifice to return ! Stung by his 
thoughts, and impatient of rest, he hurried into the air ; — 
he traversed the city; he passed St. Sebastian’s gate, 
gained the Appia Yia, and saw, lone and somber, as of 
old — the house of the departed Volktman. He had half 
unconsciously sought that direction, in order to strengthen 
his purpose and sustain his conscience in its right path. 
He now hurried onward, and stopped not till he stood in 
that lovely and haunted spot — the valley of Egeria — in 
which he had met Lucilla on the day that he first learned 
her love. There was a gloom over the scene now, for the 
day was dark and clouded : the birds were silent; a heavy 
oppression seemed to brood upon the air. He entered 
that grotto which is the witness of the most beautiful love- 
story chronicled even in the soft south. He recalled the 
passionate and burning emotions which, the last time he 
had been within that cell, he had felt for Lucilla, and had 
construed erroneously into real love. As he looked around, 
how different an aspect the spot wore ! Then, those walls, 
that spring, even that mutilated statue, had seemed to him 
the encouragers of the soft sensations he had indulged. 
Now, they appeared to reprove the very weakness which 
hallowed themselves — the associations spoke to him in 

another tone. The broken statue of the river god the 

desert silence in which the water of the sweet fountain 
keeps its melancholy course — the profound and chilling 
solitude of the spot, — all seemed eloquent, not of love, but 
the broken hope and the dreary loneliness that succeed it I 


GODOLPHIN. 


30'T 

The gentle plant (the capillaire) that overhangs the sides 
of the grotto, and nourishes itself on the dews of the 
fountain, seemed an emblem of love itself after disappoint- 
ment — the love that might henceforth be Lucilla’s — droop- 
ing in silence on the spot once consecrated to rapture, and 
feeding itself with tears. There was something mocking 
to human passion in the very antiquity of the spot ; four 
and twenty centuries had passed away since the origin of 
the tale that made it holy — and that tale, too, was fable ! 
What, in this vast accumulation of the sands of time, wa 3 
a solitary atom ! What, among the millions, the myriads, 
that around that desolate spot had loved, and forgotten 
love, was the brief passion of one mortal, withering as it 
sprung 1 Thus differently moralizes the heart, according 
to the passion which bestows on it the text. 

Before he regained his home, Godolphin’s resolve was 
taken. The next day he had promised Constance to at- 
tend her to Tivoli ; he resolved then to take leave of her, 
and on the following day to return to Lucilla. He re- 
membered with bitter reproach that he had not written to 
her for a length of time, treble the accustomed interval 
between his letters; and felt that, while at the moment 
she had written the lines he had now pressed to his bosom, 
she was expecting, with unutterable fondness and anxiety, 
to receive his lukewarm assurances of continued love, the 
letter he was about to write in answer to hers was the first 
one that would greet her eyes. But he resolved that in 
that letter, at least, she should not be disappointed. He 
wrote at length, and with all the outpourings of a tender- 


308 


QODOLPIIIN. 


ness reawakened by remorse. He informed her of his 
immediate return, and even forced himself to dwell upon 
it with kindly hypocrisy of transport. For the first time 
for several weeks, he felt satisfied with himself as he. sealed 
his letter. It is doubtful whether that letter Lucilla ever 
received. 


CHAPTER XL. 

TIVOLI — THE SIREN’S CAVE — THE CONFESSION. 

Along the deathly campagna, a weary and desolate 
length of way, — through a mean and squalid row of houses, 
— you thread your course ; and behold — Tivoli bursts upon 
you 1 

“Look — look!” cried Constance, with enthusiasm, as 
she pointed to the rushing torrent that, through matted 
trees and cragged precipices, thundered on. 

Astonished at the silence of Godolphin, whom scenery 
was usually so wont to kindle and inspire, she turned 
hastily round, and her whole tide of feeling was revulsed 
by the absorbed but intense dejection written on his coun- 
tenance. 

“Why,” said she, after a short pause, and affecting a 
playful smile, “ why, how provoking is this ! In general, not 
a common patch of green with an old tree in the center, 
not a common rivulet with a willow hanging over it, 
escapes you. You insist upon our sharing your raptures 


GODOLPHIN. 


309 


•—you dilate on the picturesque — you rise into eloquence ; 
nay, you persuade us into your enthusiasm, or you quarrel 
with us for our coldness ; and now, with this divinest of 
earthly scenes around us, — when even Lady Charlotte is 
excited, and Mr. Saville forgets himself, you are stricken 
into silence and apathy ! The reason — if it be not too 
abstruse ?” 

“It is here 1” said Godolphin, mournfully, and pressing 
his hand to his heart. 

Constance turned aside ; she indulged herself with the 
hope that he alluded to former scenes, and despaired of 
the future from their remembrance. She connected his 
melancholy with herself, and knew that, when referred to 
her, she could dispel it. Inspired by this idea, and exhil- 
arated by the beauty of the morning and the wonderful 
magnificence of nature, she indulged her spirits to over- 
flowing. And as her brilliant mind lighted up every sub- 
ject it touched, now glowing over description, now flashing 
into remark, Godolphin at one time forgot, and at another 
more keenly felt, the magnitude of the sacrifice he was 
about to make. But every one knows that feeling which, 
when we are unhappy, illumines (if I may so speak) our 
outward seeming from the fierceness of our inward despair, 
— that recklessness which is the intoxication of our grief. 

By degrees Godolphin broke from his reserve. He 
seemed to catch the enthusiasm of Constance ; he echoed 
back — he led into new and more dazzling directions — the 
delighted remarks of his beautiful companion. His mind, 
if not profoundly learned, at least irregularly rich, in the 


31 J 


GODOLPHIN. 


treasures of old times, called up a spirit from every object. 
The waterfall, the ruin, the hollow cave — the steep bank 
crested with the olive — the airy temple, the dark pomp of 
the cypress grove, and the roar of the headlong Anio , — all 
he touched with the magic of the past — clad with the 
glories of history and of legend — and decked ever and 
anon with the flowers of the eternal Poesy that yet walks, 
mourning for her children, among the vines and waterfalls 
of the ancient Tibur. And Constance, as she listened to 
him, entranced, until she herself unconsciously grew silent, 
indulged without reserve in that, the proudest luxury of 
love — pride in the beloved object. Never had the rare 
and various genius of Godolphin appeared so worthy of 
admiration. When his voice ceased, it seemed to Con- 
stauce like a sudden blank in the creation. 

Godolphin and the youug countess were several paces 
before the little party, and they now took their way toward 
the Siren’s Cave. The path that leads to that singular 
spot is humid with an eternal spray ; and it is so abrupt 
and slippery that, in order to preserve your footing, you 
must cling to the bushes that vegetate around the sides of 
the precipice. 

“ Let us dispense with our guide,” said Godolphin. “I 
know every part of the way, and I am sure you share with 
me in dislike to these hackneyed indicators and sign-posts 
for admiration. Let us leave him to Lady Charlotte and 
Saville, and suffer me to be your guide to the cavern.” 
Constance readily enough assented, and they proceeded. 
Saville, by no means liking the difficult and perilous path. 


GODOLPHIN. 


311 


which was to lead only to a very cold place, soon halted, 
and suggested to Lady Charlotte the propriety of doing 
the same. Lady Charlotte much preferred the wit of her 
companion’s conversation to the picturesque; — “Besides,” 
as she said, “ she had seen the cave before.” Accordingly, 
they both waited for the return of the more adventurous 
countess and her guide. 

Unconscious of the defalcation of her friends, and not 
— from the attention that every step required — once look- 
ing behind, Constance continued. And now, how delight- 
ful to her seemed that rugged way, as, with every moment, 
Godolphin’s care — Godolphin’s hand became necessary; 
and he, inspired, inflamed by her company, by her touch, 
by the softness of her manner, and the devotion of her 
attention — no, no ! not yet , was Lucilla forgotten 1 

And now they stood within the Siren’s Cave. From 
this spot alone you can view that terrible descent of waters 
which rushes to earth like the coming of a god I The 
rocks dripped around them — the torrent dashed at their 
very feet. Down — down, in thunder, forever and forever, 
dashed the might of the maddening element; above, all 
wrath; below, all blackness; — there, the cataract; here, 
the abyss. Not a moment’s pause to the fury, not a mo- 
ment’s silence to the roar ; — forward to the last glimpse of 
the sun — the curse of labor, and the soul of unutterable 
strength, shall be upon those waters ! The demon, tor- 
mented to an eternity, filling his dread dwelling-place with 
the unresting and unearthly voice of his rage and despair, 
is the only type meet for the spirit of the cataract. 


812 


GODOLPHIN. 


And there — amid this awful and tremendous eternity of 
strife and power — stood two beings whose momentary ex- 
istence W'as filled with the master-passion of humanity. 
And that passion was yet audible there : the nature with- 
out could not subdue that within. Even amid the icy 
showers of spray that fell around, and would have frozen 
the veins of others, Godolphin felt the burning at his heart. 
Constance was indeed utterly lost in a whirl and chaos of 
awe and admiration, which deprived her of all words. But 
it was the nature of her wayward lover to be aroused only 
to the thorough knowledge of his powers and passions 
among the more unfrequent and fierce excitements of life. 
A wild emotion now urged him on ; — something of that 
turbulent exaggeration of mind which gave rise to a mem- 
orable and disputed saying; — “If thou stoodest on a 
precipice with thy mistress, hast thou ever felt the desire 
to plunge with her into the abyss? — If so — thou hast 
loved !” No doubt the sentiment is exaggerated, but there 
are times when love is exaggerated too. And now Con- 
stance, without knowing it, had clung closer and closer to 
Godolphin. His hand at first — now his arm — supported 
her ; and at length, by an irresistible and maddening im- 
pulse, he clasped her to his breast, and whispered in a 
voice which was heard by her even amid the thunder of 
the giant waters: '‘Here, here, my early — my only love, 
I feel, in spite of myself, that I never utterly, fully, adored 
you until now 1” 


GOHOLPHIN. 


813 


CHAPTER XL I. 

LUCILLA THE SOLITUDE THE SPELL — THE DREAM AND THE 

RESOLVE. 

While the above events, so fatal to Lucilla, were in 
progress at Rome, she was holding an unquiet commune 
with her own passionate and restless heart, by the borders 
of the lake, whose silver quiet mocked the mind it had, in 
happier moments, reflected. She had now dragged on the 
weary load of time throughout the winter; and the early 
and soft spring was already abroad — smoothing the face 
of the waters, and calling life into the boughs. Hitherto 
this time of the year had possessed a mysterious and earnest 
attraction for Lucilla — now all its voices were mute. The 
letters that Godolphin had written to her were so few, and 
so restrained, in comparison with those which she had re- 
ceived in the former periods of absence, that — ever alive 
as she was to impulse, and unregulated by settled princi- 
ples of hope — her only relief to a tearful and spiritless 
dejection was in paroxysms of doubt, jealousy, and de- 
spair. 

It is the most common thing in the world, that, when 
we have once wronged a person, we go on in the wrong, 
from a certain soreness with which conscience links the 
associations of the injured party And thus, Godolphin, 
struggling with the return to his early and never-forgotten 

27 


314 


GODOLPHIN. 


love, felt an unwillingness thau he could seldom success- 
fully combat, in playing the hypocrite to Lucilla. His 
very remorse made him unkind ; the feeling that he ought 
to write often, made him write seldom : and conscious that 
he ought to return her expressions of eager devotion, he 
returned them with involuntary awkwardness and reserve. 
All this is very natural, and very evident to us; but a 
thousand mysteries were more acceptable to, more sought 
for and clung to, by Lucilla, than a conjecture at the 
truth. 

Meanwhile she fed more and more eagerly on those vain 
researches which yet beguiled her time and flattered her 
imagination. In a science so false and so unprofitable, it 
mattered, happily, little, whether or not the poor disciple 
labored with success ; but I need scarcely tell to any who 
have had the curiosity to look over the entangled schemes 
and quaint figures of the art, how slender was the advance- 
ment of the daughter in thejearning of the sire. Still it 
was a comfort and a soothing, even to look upon the 
placid heaven and form a conjecture as to the language 
of its stars. And, above all, while she questioned the 
future, she thought only of her lover. But day after day 
passed — no letter, or worse than none ; and at length 
Lucilla became utterly impatient of all rest: a nervous 
fever possessed her; the extreme solitude of the place 
filled her with that ineffable sensation of irritability which 
sometimes preludes the madness that has been produced 
in criminals by solitary confinement. 

On the day that she wrote that letter to Godolphin 


GODOLPHIN. 


315 


which I have transcribed, this painful tension of the nerves 
was more than hitherto acute. She longed to fly some- 
where; nay, once or twice, she remembered that Rome 
was easily gained, that she might be there as expeditiously 
as her letter. Although in that letter only we have signi- 
fied that Lucilla had expressed her wish for Godolphin’s 
return ; yet, in all her later letters, she had (perhaps more 
timidly) urged that desire. But they had not taken the 
same hold on Godolphin ; nor, while he was playing witn 
his danger, had they produced the same energetic resolu- 
tion. Lucilla could not, however, hope with much reason 
that the success of her present letter would be greater 
than that of her former ones ; and, at all events, she did 
not anticipate an immediate compliance with her prayers. 
She looked forward to some excuses, and to some delay. 
We cannot, therefore, wonder that she felt a growing de- 
sire to follow her own epistle to Rome ; and although she 
had been prevented before, and still drew back from abso- 
lutely favoring and enforcing the idea, by the fear of Go- 
dolphin’s displeasure ; yet she trusted enough to his gen- 
tleness of character to feel sure that the displeasure could 
scarcely be lasting. Still the step was bold, and Lucilla 
loved devotedly enough to be timid ; and besides, her inex- 
perience made her look upon the journey as a far more 
formidable expedition than it really was. 

Debating the notion in her mind, she sought her usual 
retreat, and turned listlessly over the books which she had 
so lately loved to study. At length, in moving one she 
had not looked into before a paper fell to the ground ; 


316 


GODOLPHIN. 


she picked it up ; it was the paper containing that figure, 
which, it will be remeraoered, the astrologer had shown to 
his daughter, as a charm to produce dreams prophetic of 
any circumstance or person concerning whom the believer 
might be anxious to learn aught. As she saw the image, 
which, the reader will recollect, was of a remarkable de- 
sign, the whole of her conversation with Yolktman on the 
subject rushed into her mind, and she resolved that very 
night to prove the efficacy of the charm on which he had 
so confidently insisted. Fraught with the chimerical de- 
lusion, she now longed for the hours to pass and the night 
to come. She looked again and again at the singular 
image and the portentous figures wrought upon the charm; 
the very strangeness of the characters inspired her, as was 
natural, with a belief in their efficacy; and she felt a thrill, 
an awe, creep over her blood, as the shadows of eve, 
deepening over the far mountains, brought on the time of 
trial. At length it was night, and Lucilla sought her 
chamber 

The hour was exceedingly serene, and the stars shone 
through the casement with a luster that to her seemed 
ominous. With bare feet, and only in her night-robe, she 
stole tremblingly across the threshold. She pausad for a 
moment at the window, and looked out on the deep and 
quiet night ; and as she so stood, it was a picture that, had 
] been a painter, I would have devoted a youth to accom- 
plish. Half in light — half in shadow — her undress gave 
the outline, and somewnat more, of a throat and breast 
whose roundness, shape, and hue never were surpassed 


UODOLPHIN. 


317 


Her arms were lightly crossed above her bosom ; and her 
long rich hair, seeming darker by that light, fell profusely, 
yet not disheveled, around her neck, parting from her 
brow. Her attitude at that moment was quite still, as if 
in worship, and perhaps it was: her face was inclined 
slightly upward, looking to the heavens and toward Rome. 
But that face — there was the picture I It was so young, 
so infantine, so modest; and yet, the youth and the timidity 
were elevated and refined by the earnest doubt, the pre- 
ternatural terror, the unearthly hope, which dwelt upon 
her forehead — her parted lip, and her wistful and kindled 
eye. There was a sublimity in her loneliness and her 
years, and in the fond and vain superstition, which was 
but a spirit called from the deeps of an unfathomable and 
mighty love. And afar was heard the breaking of the 
lake upon the shore — no other sound ! And now, among 
the unwaving pines, there was a silver shimmer as the moon 
rose into her empire, and deepened at once, along the uni- 
versal scene, the loveliness and the awe. 

Lucilla turned from the window, and kneeling down, 
wrote with a trembling hand upon the figure one word — 
the name of Godolphin. She then placed it under her 
pillow, and the spell was concluded. The astrologer had 
told her of the necessary co-operation which the mind 
must afford to the charm; but it will easily be believed 
that Lucilla required no injunction to let her imagination 
dwell upon the vision she expected to invoke. And it 
would have been almost strange, if, so intently and earn- 
estly brooding, as she had done over the image of Godol- 
27 * 


318 


GODOLPIIIN. 


phin, that image had not, without recurring to any caba- 
listical spells, been present to her dreams. 

She thought that it was broad noonday, and that she 
was sitting alone in the house she then inhabited, and 
weeping bitterly. Of a sudden the voice of Godolphin 
called to her; she ran eagerly forth, but no sooner had 
she passed the threshold, than the scene so familiar to her 
vanished, and she was alone in an immense and pathless 
wilderness ; there was no tree and no water in this desert ; 
all was arid, solitary, and inanimate. But what seemed 
most strange to her was, that in the heavens, although they 
were clear and bright, there was neither sun nor stars; 
the light seemed settled and stagnant — there was in it no 
life. 

And she thought that she continued to move involun- 
tarily along the waste; and that, ever and anon, sho 
yearned and strove to rest, but her limbs did not obey her 
will, and a power she could not control urged her onward. 

And now there was no longer an utter dumbness and 
death over the scene. Forth from the sands, as from the 
bowels of the reluctant earth, there crept, one by one, 
loathly and reptile shapes; obscene sounds rang in her 
ears — now in a hideous mockery, now in a yet more sick- 
ening solicitation. Shapes of terror thickened and crowded 
round her. She was roused by dread into action ; she 
hurried faster and faster ; she strove to escape ; and ever 
as she fled the sounds grew louder, and the persecuting 
shapes more ghastly, — abominations which her pure mind 
shuddered to behold, presented themselves at every turn ; 


there was no spot for refuge, no cave for concealment. 
Wearied and despairing, she stopped short; but then the 
shapes and sounds seemed gradually to lose their terror ; 
her eye and ear became familiar to them ; and what at first 
seemed foes, grew into companions. 

And now, again, the wilderness was gone ; she stood in 
a strange spot, and opposite, and gazing upon her with 
Intent and mournful eyes, stood Godolphin. But he 
seemed much older than he was, and the traces of care 
were plowed deeply on his countenance ; and above 
them both hung a motionless and livid cloud ; and from 
the cloud a gigantic hand was stretched forth, pointing 
with a shadowy and unmoving figure toward a quarter of 
the earth which was enveloped in’ a thick gloom. While 
she sought with straining eyes to penetrate the darkness 
of the spot thus fearfully marked out, she thought Godol- 
pliin vanished, and all was sudden and utter night — night, 
but not stillness — for there was a roar as of many winds, 
and a dashing of angry waters, that seemed close beneath; 
and she heard the trees groan and bend, and felt the icy 
and rushing air; the tempests were abroad. But amid 
the mingling of the mighty sounds, she heard distinctly 
the ringing of a horse’s hoofs ; and presently a wild cry, 
in which she recognized the voice of Godolphin, rang forth, 
adding to the wrath of nature the yet more appalling wit- 
ness of a human despair. The cry was followed by the 
louder dashing of the waves and the fiercer turmoil of the 
winds ; and then, her anguish and horror freeing her from 
the Prison of Sleep, she woke. 


320 


GODOLPIIIN. 


It was nearly day, but the serenity of the late night had 
.gone; the rain fell in torrents, and the house shook be- 
neath the fury of a violent storm. This change in the 
mood of nature had probably influenced the latter part of 
her dream. But Lucilla thought of no natural solution to 
the dreadful vision she had undergone. Her superstition 
was confirmed and ratified by the intense impression 
wrought upon her mind by the dream. A thousand un- 
utterable fears, fears for Godolphin, rather than herself — 
or if for herself, only iu connection with him — bore irre- 
sistible despotism over her thoughts. She could not en- 
dure to wait, to linger any longer in the dark and agitated 
suspense she herself had created ; the idea she before had 
nursed, now became resolve ; she determined forthwith to 
set out for Rome — to see Godolphin. She rose, woke her 
attendant, and that very day she put her resolution into 
effect. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

JOY AND DESPAIR. 

It was approaching toward the evening as Lucilla 
paused for a few seconds at the door which led to Godol- 
phin’s apartments. At length she summoned courage. 
The servant who admitted her was Godolphin’s favorite 
domestic ; and he was amazed, but overjoyed to see her ; 


GODOLPHIN. 


321 


*■ 


for Lucilla was the idol of all who knew her, — save of him 
whose love only she cared and lived for. 

Jlis master, he said, was gone out for a short time, but 
the next day they were to have returned home. Lucilla 
colored with vivid delight to hear that her letter had pro- 
duced an effect she had not hoped so expeditiously to 
accomplish. She passed on into Godolphin’s apartment. 
The room bore evident signs of approaching departure : 
the trunks lay half packed on the floor; there was all 
that importance of confusion around which makes to the 
amateur traveler a luxury out of discomfort. Lucilla sat 
down, and waited, anxious and trembling, for her lover. 
Her woman, who had accompanied her, thinking of more 
terrestrial concerns than love, left her at her desire. She 
could not rest long; she walked, agitated and expecting, 
to and fro the long and half-furnished chamber which char- 
acterizes the Italian palace. At length, her eye fell on an 
open letter on a writing-table at one corner of the room. 
She glanced over it mechanically, — certain words suddenly 
arrested her attention. Were those words — words of pas- 
sion — addressed to her? If not, 0 heaven! to whom? 
She obeyed, as she ever did, the impulse of the moment, 
and read what follows : 

“ Constance ! — As I write that word how many remem- 
brances rush upon me ! — for how many years has that name 
been a talisman to my heart, waking its emotions at will ! 
You are the first woman I ever really loved : you rejected 
me, yet I could not disdain you. You became another’s 

but my love could not desert you. Your hand wrote 

27 * V 


322 


GODOLPHIN. 


the history of my life after the period when we met, — my 
habits — my thoughts — you influenced and colored them 
all I And now, Constance, you are free; and I love you 
more fervently than ever ! And you — yes, you would not 
reject me now ; you have grown wiser, and learned the 
value of a heart. And yet the same Fate that divided 
ns hitherto will divide us now ; all obstacles but one are 
passed away — of that one you shall hear and judge. 

“When we parted, Constance, years ago, I did not sub- 
mit tamely to the burning remembrance you bequeathed 
me ; I sought to dissipate your image, and by wooing 
others to forget yourself. Need I say, that to know an- 
other was only to remember you the more? But among 
the other and far less worthy objects of my pursuit was one 
whom, had I not seen you first, I might have loved as 
ardently as I do you ; and in the first flush of emotion, 
and the heat of sudden events, I imagined that I did so 
love her. She was an orphan, a child in years and in the 
world ; and I was all to her— I am all to her. She is not 
mine by the ties of the church, but I have pledged a faith 
to her equally sacred and as strong. Shall I break that 
faith ? shall I betray that trust ? shall I crush a heart that 
nas always been mine — mine more tenderly than yours, rich 
in a thousand gifts and resources, ever was or ever can be ? 
Shall I — sworn to protect her — I, who have already robbed 
her of fame and friends, rob her now of father, brother, 
lover, husband, the world itself, — for I am all to her? 
Never— never I I shall be wretched throughout life: I 
shall know that you are free— that you — oh ! Constance ! 
you might be mine !— but she shall never dream what she 
has cost me I I have been too cold, too ungrateful to her 
already— I will make her amends. My heart may break 
in the effort, but it shall reward her. You, Constance, in 
the pride of your lofty station, your strengthened mind, 


GODOLPHIN. 


323 


regulated virtue (fenced in by the hundred barriers of 
custom), you cannot, perhaps, conceive how pure and de- 
voted the soul of this poor girl is ! She is not one whom 
I could heap riches upon and leave : — my love is all the 
riches she knows. Earth has not a consolation or a recom- 
pense for the loss of my affection : and even heaven itself 
she has never learned to think of, except as a place in 
which wt? shall be united forever. As I write this I know 
that she is sitting afar off and alone, and thinking only of 
one wh'/se whole soul, fated and accursed as he is, is mad- 
dened by the love of another. My letters, her only com- 
fort, have been cold and few of late : I know how they have 
wrung her heart : I picture to myself her solitude — her sad- 
ness — her unfriended youth — her ardent mind, which, not 
enriched by culture, clings, feeds, lives only on one idea. 
Before you receive this, I shall be on the road to her. 
Never again will I risk the temptation I have undergone. 
I am not a vain man ; • I do not deceive myself ; I do not 
imagine, I do not insult you by believing, that you will 
long or bitterly feel my loss. I have loved you far better 
than you have loved me, and you have uncounted channels 
for your bright hopes and your various ambition. You 
love the world, and the world is at your feet ! And in 
remembering me now, you may think you have cause for 
indignation. Why, with the knowledge of a tie that for- 
bade me to hope for you, why did I linger round you? 
why did I give vent to any word, or license to any look, 
that told you I loved you still? Why, above all, on that 
fated yesterday, when we stood alone surrounded by the ' 
waters, — why did I dare forget myself — why clasp you to 
my breast — why utter the assurance of that love which 
was a mockery, if I were not about solemnly to record it ? 

“ This you will ask ; and if you are not satisfied with 
the answer, your pride will clothe my memory with resent- 


324 


GODOLPfllN. 


ment. Be it so — yet hear me ! Constance, when, in my 
first youth, at the time when the wax was yet soft, and the 
tree might yet be bent — when I laid my heart and my 
future lot at your feet — when you, at the dictates of a 
worldly and cold ambition (disguise the name as you will, 
the reality is the same), threw me back on the solitary 
desert of life ; when you rejected — forsook me ; — do you 
think that, although I loved you still, there was no anger 
mingled with the love? We met again : but what years of 
wasted existence — of dimmed hope — of deadened emotion 
— had passed over me since then ! And who had thus 
marked them ? — You! Do you wonder, then, that some- 
thing of human pride asked for human vengeance ? Yes ! 
I pined for some triumph in my turn : I longed to try 
whether I was yet forgotten — whether the heart which 
stung me had been stung also in the wound that it in- 
flicted. Was not this natural? Ask yourself, and blame 
me if you can. But by degrees— as I gazed upon a beauty 
and listened to a voice softer in their character than of 
old, — as I felt that you would not deny me retribution, 
this selfish desire for revenge died away, and, by degrees, 
all emotions were merged in one — unconquered, uncon- 
querable love. And can you blame me, if then — traitor 
to myself as to you — I lingered on the spot ?— if I had 
many struggles to endure before I could resolve on the 
sacrifice I now make ? Alas ! it has cost me much to be 
just. Can you blame me if at all times I could not con- 
trol my words and looks ? — Nay, even in our last meeting, 
when I was maddened by the thought that we were about 
to'part forever — when we stood alone — when no e} e was 

near — when you clung to me in a delicious timidity when 

your breath was on my cheek — when the heaving of pour 
heart was heard by mine — when my hand touched that 
which could give me all the world in itself— when my arm 


GODOLPHIN. 


325 


encircled that gloric ns and divine shape — 0 Heaven ! can 
you blame me — can you wonder if I was transported be- 
yond myself; — if conscience, reason, all were forgotten, 
and I thought — felt— lived — but for the moment and for 
you? No, you will feel for the weakness of nature; you 
will not judge me harshly. 

“And why should you rob me of the remembrance of 
that brief moment — that wild embrace ? How often shall 
I recall it !— How often, when the light step of her to whom 
I return glides around me, shall I cheat myself, and think 
it yours : when I feel her breath at night, shall I not start 
and dream it comes from your lips ? and in returning her 
unconscious caress, let me — let me fancy it is you who 
whisper me the assurances of unutterable love ! — Forgive 
me, Constance, my yet adored Constance, whom I shall 
never see more, for these wild words — this momentary 
weakness. Farewell 1 Whatever becomes of me, may God 
give you all his blessings ! 

“One word more — no, I will not close this letter yet! 
You remember that you once gave me a flower — years 
ago. I have preserved its leaves to this day ; but I will 
give no indulgence to a folly that will now wrong you, and 
be unworthy of myself. I will send you back those leaves : 
let them plead for me, as the memories of former days. I 
must break off now, for I can literally write no more. I 
must go forth and recover my self-command. And oh ! 
may she whom I seek to-morrow — whose unsuspecting 
heart, admonished by temptation, I will watch over, guide, 
and shield, far, far more zealously than I have yet done— 
never know what it has'cost me not to abandon and betray 
her.” 

And Lueilla read over every word of this letter ! How 
wholly impossible it is for language to express the agony, 

28 


326 


GOJjOLPHIN. 


the hopeless, irremediable despair that deepened within 
her as she proceeded to the end! Everything that life 
had, or could ever have had for her, of common peace o»* 
joy, was blasted forever ! As she came to the last word, 
she bowed her head in silence over the writing, and felt as 
if some mighty rock had fallen upon her heart and crushed 
it to dust. Had the letter breathed but one unkind — one 
slighting expression of her, it would have been some com- 
fort — some rallying point, however forlorn and wretched ; 
but this cruel tenderness — this bitter generosity I 

And before she had read that letter, how joyously, how 
breathlessly she had anticipated rushing to her lover’s 
breast ! It seems incredible that the space of a few minutes 
should suffice to blight a whole existence — blacken, with- 
out a ray of hope, an entire future ! 

She was aroused by the sound of steps, though in an- 
other apartment; she would not now have met Godolphin 
for worlds ; the thought of his return alone gave her the 
power of motion. She thrust the fatal letter into her 
bosom ; and then, in characters surprisingly distinct and 
clear, she wrote her name, and placed that writing in the 
stead of the epistle she took away. She judged rightly, 
that that single name would suffice to say all she could not 
then say. Having done this, she rose, left the room, and 
stole softly and unperceived into the open street. 

Unconscious and careless whither she went, she hurried 
on, her eyes bent on the ground, and concealing her form 
and face with her long mantle. The streets at Rome are 
not thronged as with us ; nor does there exist, in a city 


i 


GODOLPHIN. 


327 


consecrated by so many sublime objects, that restless and 
vulgar curiosity which torments the English public. Each 
lives in himself, not in his neighbor. The moral air of 
Rome is Indifference. 

Lucilla, therefore, hurried along unmolested and unob- 
served, until at length her feet failed her, and she sank 
exhausted, but still unconscious of her movements and of 
all around, upon one of the scattered fragments of ancient 
pride that at every turn are visible in the streets of Rome. 
The place was quiet and solitary, and darkened by the 
shadows of a palace that reared itself close beside. She 
sat down ; and shrouding her face as it drooped over her 
breast, endeavored to collect her thoughts. Presently the 
sound of a guitar was heard ; and along the street came a 
little group of the itinerant musicians who invest modern 
Italy with its yet living air of poetry : the reality is gone, 
but the spirit lingers. They stopped opposite a small 
house ; and Lucilla, looking up, saw the figure of a young 
girl placing a light at the window as a signal well known, 
and then she glided away. Meanwhile, the lover (who 
had accompanied the musicians, and seemed in no very 
elevated rank of life) stood bareheaded beneath ; and in 
his upward Took there was a devotion, a fondness, a re- 
spect, that brought back to Lucilla all the unsparing bit- 
terness of contrast and recollection. And now the sere- 
nade began. The air was inexpressibly soft and touching, 
and toe words were steeped in that vague melancholy 
which is inseparable from the tenderness, if not from the 
passion, of love. Lucilla listened involuntarily, and the 


828 


GODOLPHIN. 


charm slowly wrought its effect. The hardness and confu* 
sion of her mind melted gradually away, and as the song 
ended she turned aside and burst into tears : — “ Happy, 
happy girl,” she murmured, “ she is loved !” 

Here let us drop the curtain upon Lucilla. Often, 0 
Reader ! shalt thou recall this picture ; often shalt thou 
see her before thee — alone and broken-hearted — weeping 
in the twilight streets of Rome ! 


CHAPTER XLIII 

LOVE STRONG AS DEATH, AND NOT LESS BITTER. 

When Godolphin returned home the door was open, as 
Lucilla had left it, and he went at once into his apartment. 
He hastened to the table on which he had left, with the 
negligence arising from the emotions of the moment, the 
letter to Constance, — the paper on which Lucilla had 
written her name alone met his eye. While yet stunned 
and amazed, his servant and Lucilla’s entered : in a few 
moments he learned all they had to tell him ; the rest 
Lucilla’s handwriting did indeed sufficiently explain. He 
comprehended all; and, in a paroxysm of alarm and re- 
morse, he dispersed his servants, and hurried, himself, in 
search of her. He went to the house of her relations; 
they had not seen or heard of her. It was now night, and 


GODOLPIIIN. 


329 


every obstacle in the way of his search presented itself. 
Not a clew could be traced ; or, sometimes following a 
description that seemed to him characteristic, he chased, 
and found some wanderer — how unlike Lueilla ! Toward 
daybreak he returned home, after a vain and weary search ; 
and his only comfort was in learning from her attendant 
that she had about her a sum of money which he knew 
would in Italy always purchase safety and attention. Yet, 
alone, at night, in the streets, — so utter a stranger as she 
was to the world, — so young and so lovely — he shuddered, 
he gasped for breath at the idea. Might she destroy her- 
self ? That hideous question forced itself upon him ; he 
could not exclude it: he trembled when he recalled her 
impassioned and keen temper ; and when, in remembering 
the tone and words of his letter to Constance, he felt how 
desperate a pang every sentence must have inflicted upon 
her. And, indeed, even his imagination could not equal 
the truth, when it attempted to sound the depths of her 
wounded feelings. He only returned home to sally out 
again. He now employed the police, and those most active 
and vigilant agents that at Rome are willing to undertake 
all enterprises ; — he could not but feel assured of discover- 
ing her. 

Still, however, noon — evening came on, and no tidings. 
As he once more returned home, in the faint hope that 
some intelligence might await him there, his servant hur- 
ried eagerly out to him with a letter — it was from Lueilla, 
and it was worthy of her : I give it to the reader. 

28 * 


330 


GODOLPHIN. 


LUCILLA’S LETTER. 

“ I have read your letter to another 1 Are not theso 
words sufficient to tell you all ? All ? no l you never, never, 
never can tell how crushed and broken my heart is. Why ? 
— because you are a man, and because you have never 
loved as I loved. Yes, Godolphin, I knew that I was 
not one whom you could love. I am a poor, ignorant, 
untutored girl, with nothing at my heart but a great 
world of love which I could never tell. Thou saidst I 
could not comprehend thee: alas! how much was there — 
is there — in my nature — in my feelings, which have been, 
and ever will be, unfathomable to thy sight ! 

“But all this matters not; the tie between us is eternally 
broken. Go, dear, dear Godolphin ! link thyself to that 
happier other one — seemingly so much more thine equal 
than the lowly and uncultivated Lucilla. Grieve not for 
me; you have been kind, most kind, to me. You have 
taken away hope, but you have given me pride in its 
stead ; — the blow which has crushed my heart has given 
strength to my mind. Were you and I left alone on the 
earth, we must still be apart; I could never, never live 
with you again ; my world is not your world ; when our 
hearts have ceased to be in common, what of union is 
there left to us ? Yet it would be something if, since the 
future is shut out from me, you had not also deprived me 
of the past : I have not even the privilege of looking 
back ! What ! all the while my heart was lavishing itself 
up6n thee — all the while I had no other thought, no other 
dream but thee — all the while I sat by thy side, and watched 
thee, hanging on thy wish, striving to foresee thy thoughts 
— all the while I was the partner of thy days, and at night 
my bosom was thy pillow, and I could not sleep from the 
bliss of thinking thee so near me: thy heart was then in- 


C ODOLPHIN. 


331 


deed away from me; tliy thoughts estranged; I was to 
thee only an encumbrance — a burden, from which thy sigh 
was to be free ! Can I ever look back, then, to those hours 
we spent together ? All that vast history of the past is 
but one record of bitterness and shame. And yet I cannot 
blame thee; it were something if I could: in proportion 
as you loved me not, you were kind and generous; and 
God will bless you for that kindness to the poor orphan. 
A harsh word, a threatening glance, I never had the afflic- 
tion to feel from thee. Tracing the blighted past, I am 
only left to sadden at that gentleness which never came 
from love 1 

“ Go, Godolphin — I repeat the prayer in all humbleness 
and sincerity — go to her whom thou lovest, perhaps as I 
loved thee; go, and in your happiness I shall feel at last 
something of happiness myself. We part forever, but there 
is no unkindness between us; there is no reproach that one 
can make against the other. If I have sinned, it has been 
against Heaven and not thee ; and thou — why, even against 
Heaven mine was all the fault — the rashness — the mad- 
ness ! You will return to your native land ; to that proud 
England, of which I have so often questioned you, and 
which, even in your answers, seems to me so cold and de- 
solate a spot, — a land so hostile to love. There, in your 
new ties, you will learn new objects, and you will be too 
busy, and too happy, for your thoughts to turn to me 
again. Too happy ? — No, I wish I could think you would 
be ; but I, whom you deny to possess sympathies with 
you — I have at least penetrated so far into your heart as 
to fear that, come what may, you will never find the hap- 
piness you ask. You exact too much, you dream too fondly, 
not to be discontented with the truth. What has happened 
to me must happen to my rival — will happen to you through- 
out life. Your being is in one world, your soul is in an* 


332 


GODOLPHIN. 


other. Alas ! how foolishly I run on, as if seeking in your 
Dature, and not circumstances, the blow that separates us. 

“I shall hasten to a conclusion. I have gained a refuge 
in this convent; seek me not, follow me not, I implore, I 
adjure thee ; it can serve no purpose. I would not see 
thee ; the veil is already drawn between thy world and me, 
and it only remains, in kindness and in charity, to bid each 
other farewell. Farewell, then 1 I think I am now with 
thee; I think my lips have breathed aside thy long hair, 
and cling to thy fair temples with a sister’s — that word, at 
least, is left me — a sister’s kiss. As we stood together, at 
the gray dawn, when we last parted — as then, in sorrow 
and in tears, I hid my face in thy bosom — as then, uncon- 
scious of what was to come, I poured forth my assurances 
of faithful, unswerving thought — as thrice thou didst tear 
thyself from me and didst thrice return, — and as, through 
the comfortless mists of morn, I gazed after thee, and fan- 
cied for hours that thy last words yet rang in my ear ; so 
now, but with different feelings, I once more bid thee fare- 
well — farewell forever 1 ” 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

GODOLPHIN. 

“ No, signor, she will not see you !” 

“You have given my note — given that ring?” 

“I have, and she still refuses.” 

“ Refuses ? — and is that all the answer ? no line to to 

soften the reply ?” 


GODOLPHIN. 


333 


“ Signor, I have spoken all my message.” 

“Cruel, hard-hearted 1 May I call again, think you, 
with a better success ?” 

“ The convent, at stated times, is open to strangers, 
signor; but so far as the young signora is concerned, I. 
feel assured, from her manner, that your visits will be in 
vain.” 

“Ay — ay, I understand you, madam ; you wish to entioe 
her from the wicked world, — to suffer not human friend- 
ships to disturb her thoughts. Good heavens ! and can 
she, so young, so ardent, dream of taking the veil ?” 

“ She does not dream of it,” said the nun coolly; “she 
has no intention of remaining here long.” 

“ Befriend me, I beseech you !” cried Godolphin, eagerly: 
“ restore her to me ; let me only come once to her within 
these walls, and I will enrich your ” 

“ Signor, good day.” 

Dejected, melancholy, and yet enraged amid all his sor- 
row, Godolphin returned to Rome. Lucilla’s letter rankled 
in his heart like the barb of a broken arrow ; but the stern 
resolve with which she had refused to see him appeared to 
the pride that belongs to manhood a harsh and unfeeling 
insult. He knew not that poor Lucilla’s eyes had watched 
him from the walls of the convent, and that while, for his 
sake more than her own, she had refused the meeting he 
prayed for, she had not the resolution to deny herself the 
luxury of gazing on him once more. 

He reached Rome : he found a note on his table from 
Lady Charlotte Deerham, saying she had heard it was his 


334 


UODOLPHIN. 


intention to leave Rome, and begging him to receive from 
her that evening her adieux. “Lady Erpingham will be 
with me,” concluded the note. 

This brought a new train of ideas. Since Lucilla’s flight, 
all thought but of Lucilla had been expelled from Godol- 
phin’s mind. We have seen how his letter to Lady Erping- 
ham miscarried : he had written no other. How strange 
to Constance must seem his conduct, after the scene of the 
avowal in the Siren’s Cave: no excuse on the one hand, 
no explanation on the other ; and now what explanation 
should he give ? There was no longer a necessity, for it 
was no longer honesty and justice to fly from the bliss that 
might await him — the love of his early- worshiped Con- 
stance. But could he, with a heart yet bleeding from the 
violent rupture of one tie, form a new one? Agitated, 
restless, self-reproachful, bewildered, and uncertain, he 
could not bear thoughts that demanded answers to a thou- 
sand questions; he flung from his cheerless room, and has- 
tened, with a feverish pulse and burning temples, to Lady 
Charlotte Deerham’s. 

“Good Heavens 1 how ill you look, Mr. Godolphin !” 
cried the hostess, involuntarily. 

“1111 — ha 1 ha I I never was better; but I have just re- 
turned from a long journey : I have not touched food nor 
felt sleep for three days and nights. I ! — ha ! ha ! no, I’m 
not ill;” and, with an eye bright with gathering delirium, 
Godolphin glared around him. 

Lady Charlotte drew back and shuddered ; Godolphin 
felt a cool, soft hand laid on his; he turned, and the face 


GODOLPHIN. 


335 


of Constance, full of anxious and wondering pity, was bent 
upon him. He stood arrested for one moment, and then, 
seizing that hand, pressed it to his lips — his heart, and 
burst suddenly into tears. That paroxysm saved his life ; 
for days afterward he was insensible. 


CHAPTER XL Y. 

THE DECLARATION THE APPROACHING NUPTIALS — IS THE IDEALIST 

CONTENTED? 

As Godolphin returned to health, and, day after day, 
the presence of Constance, her soft tones, her deep eyes, 
grew on him, renewing their ancient spells, the reader 
must perceive that bourn to which events necessarily 
tended. For some weeks not a word that alluded to the 
Siren’s Cave was uttered by either ; but when that allu- 
sion came at last from Godolphin’s lips, the next moment 
he was kneeling beside Constance, her hand surrendered to 
his, and her proud cheek all bathed in the blushes of six- 
teen. 

“And so,” said Saville, “ you, Percy Godolphin, are at 
last the accepted lover of Constance, Countess of Erping- 
ham ? When is the wedding to be ?” 

“ I know not,” replied Godolphin, musingly. 

Well, I almost envy you ; you will b« very happy for 
six weeks, and that’s something in this disagreeable world. 


336 


GODOLFHIN. 


Yet, now I look on you, I grow reconciled to myaelf 
again ; you do not seem so happy as that I, Augustus 
Saville, should envy you while my digestion lasts. What 
are you thinking of?” 

“Nothing,” replied Godolphin, vacantly; the words of 
Lucilla were weighing at his heart, like a prophecy work- 
ing toward its fulfillment: “ Come what may, you will 
never find the happiness you ask ; you exact too much” 

At that moment Lady Erpingham’s page entered with a 
note from Constance, and a present of flowers. No one 
ever wrote half so beautifully, so spiritually, as Constance ; 
and to Percy the wit was so intermingled with the tender- 
ness ! 

“No,” said he, burying his lips among the flowers; 
“ no ! I discard the foreboding ; with you I must be 
happy !” But conscience, still unsilenced, whispered — 
Lucilla ! 

The marriage was to take place at Rome. The day 
was fixed ; and, owing to Constance’s rank/ beauty, and 
celebrity, the news of the event created throughout “the 
English in Italy” no small sensation. There was a great 
deal of gossip, of course, on the occasion ; and some of 
this gossip found its way to the haughty ears of Constance. 

It was said that she had made a strange match that it 

was a curious weakness in one so proud and brilliant, to 
look no loftier than a private and not very wealthy gentle- 
man ; handsome, indeed, and reputed clever, but one who 
had never distinguished himself in anything — who never 
would 1 


GODOLPHIN. 


337 


Constance was alarmed and stung, not at the vulgar 
accusation, the paltry sneer, but at the prophecy relating 
to Godolphin : “ he had never distinguished himself in 
anything — he never would.” Rank, wealth, power, Con- 
stance felt these she wanted not, these she could command 
of herself ; but she felt also- that a nobler vanity of her 
nature required that the man of her mature and second 
choice should not be one, in repute, of that mere herd, 
above whom, in reality, his genius so eminently exalted 
him. She deemed it essential to her future happiness 
that Godolphin’s ambition should be aroused, that he 
should share her ardor for those great objects that she 
felt would forever be dear to her. 

“I love Rome!” said she, passionately, one day, as, 
accompanied by Godolphin, she left the Vatican; “I feel 
my soul grow larger amid its mins. Elsewhere, through 
Italy, we live in the present, but here in the past.” 

“Say not that that is the better life, dear Constance; 
the present — can we surpass it ?” 

Constance blushed, and thanked her lover with a look 
that told him he was understood. 

“Yet,” said she, returning to the subject, “who can 
breathe the air that is rife with glory, and not be intoxi- 
cated with emulation ? Ah, Percy !” 

“Ah, Constance! and what wouldst thou have of me? 
Is it not glory enough to be thy lover?” 

“Let the world be as proud of my choice as I am. 

Godolphin frowned ; he penetrated in those words to 
Constance’s secret meaning. Accustomed to be an idol 

29 w 

s 


338 


GODOLPHIN. 


from his boyhood, he resented the notion that he had need 
of exertion to render him worthy even of Constance ; and 
sensible that it might be thought he had made an alliance 
beyond his just pretensions, he was doubly tenacious as to 
his own claims. Godolphin frowned then, and turned 
away in silence. Constance sighed ; she felt that she 
might not renew the subject. But, after a pause, Godol- 
phin himself continued it. 

“ Constance, ” said he, in a low firm voice, “let us un- 
derstand each other. You are all to me in the world; 
fame, and honor, and station, and happiness. Am I, also, 
that all to you ? If there be any thought at your heart 
which whispers you, ‘you might have served your ambi- 
tion better ; you have done wrong in yielding to love and 
love only,’ — then, Constance, pause; it is not too late.” 

“Do I deserve this, Percy ?” 

“You drop words sometimes,” answered Godolphin, 
“that seem to indicate that you think the world may cavil 
at your choice, and that some exertion on my part is 
necessary to maintain your dignity. Constance, need I 
say, again and again, that I adore the very dust you tread 
on ? But I have a pride, a self-respect, beneath which I 
cannot stoop ; if you really think or feel this, I will not 
condescend to receive even happiness from you: let us 
part.” 

Constance saw his lips white and quivering as he spoke ; 
her heart smote her, her pride vanished ; she sank on his 
shoulder, and forgot even ambition ; nay, while she inly 
murmured at his sentiment, she felt it breathed a sort of 


GODOLPHIN. 


339 


nobility that she could not but esteem. She strove then 
to lull to rest all her more worldly anxieties for the future ; 
to hope that, cast on the exciting stage of English ambi- 
tion, Godolphin must neoessarily be stirred despite his 
creed ; and if she sometimes doubted, sometimes despaired 
of this, she felt at least that his presence had become 
dearer to her than all things. Nay, she checked her own 
enthusiasm, her own worship of fame, since they clashed 
with his opinions ; so marvelously and insensibly had Love 
bowed down the proud energies and the lofty soul of the 
daughter of John Vernon. 


CHAPTER XL VI. 

THE BRIDALS — THE ACCIDENT — THE FIRST LAWFUL POSSESSION 
OF LOVE. 

It was the morning on which Constance and Godolphin 
were to be married ; it had been settled that they were to 
proceed the same day toward Elorence ; and Constance 
was at her toilet when her woman laid beside her a large 
bouquet of flowers. 

“From Percy — from Mr. Godolphin, I mean?” she 
asked, taking them up. 

“No, my lady; a young woman outside the palace gave 
them me, and bade me in such pretty English be sure to 
give them to your ladyship ; and when I offered her 
money, she would not take anything, my lady.” 


340 


GODOLPHIN. 


“The Italians are a courteous people,” replied Con- 
stance ; and she placed the flowers in her bosom. 

As, after the ceremony, Godolphin assisted his bride 
into the carriage, a girl, wrapped in a large cloak, pressed 
forward for a moment. Godolphin had in that moment 
turned his head to give some order to his servant, and 
with the next the girl had sunk back into the throng that 
was drawn around the carriage — yet not before Constance 
had heard her murmur in a deep, admiring, yet sorrowful 
tone : “Beautiful ! how beautiful ! — Ah me 1” 

“ Did you observe what beautiful eyes that young girl 
had ?” asked Constance, as the carriage whirled off. 

“ What girl ? I saw nothing but you 1” 

“Hark ! there is a noise behind.” 

Godolphin looked out ; the crowd seemed collected 
round one person. 

“ Only a young woman fainted, sir !” said his servant 
seated behind. “ She fell down in a fit just before the 
horses; but they started aside, and did not hurt her.” 

“ That is fortunate J” said Godolphin, reseating himself 
by his new bride; “drive on faster.” 

At Florence, Godolphin revealed to Constance the out- 
line of Lucilla’s history, and Constance shared somewhat 
of the feelings with which he told it. 

“ I left,” said he, “ in the hands of the abbess a sum to 
be entirely at Lucilla’s control, whether she stay in the con- 
vent or not, and which will always secure to her an inde- 
pendence. But I confess I should like now, once more to 
visit the convent and learn on what fate she has decided.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


341 


* You would do well, dear Percy,” replied Constance, 
who from her high and starred sphere could stoop to no 
vulgar jealousy ; “ indeed, I think, you could do no less.” 

And Godolphin covered those generous lips with the 
sweet kisses in which esteem begins to mingle with pas- 
sion. What has the Earth like that first fresh union of two 
hearts long separated, and now blended forever I How- 
ever close the sympathy between woman and her lover— 
however each thinks to have learned the other — what a 
world is there left unlearned, until marriage brings all 
those charming confidences, that holy and sweet inter- 
course, which leave no separate interest, no undivided 
thought 1 But there is one thing that distinguishes the 
conversation of young married people from that of lovers 
on a less sacred footing — they talk of the future! Other 
lovers talk rather of the past ; an uncertainty pervades 
their hereafter; they feel, they recoil from it; they are 
sensible that their plans are not one and indivisible. But 
married people are always laying out the “to come;” 
always talking over their plans : this often takes some- 
thing away from the tenderness of affection, but how much 
it adds to its enjoyment ! 

Seated by each other, and looking on the silver Arno, 
Godolphin and Constance, hand clasped in hand, surren- 
dered themselves to the contemplation of their future hap- 
piness. “And what would be your favorite mode of life, 
dear Percy?” 

“ Why, I have now no schemings left me, Constance. 
With you obtained, I have grown a dullard, and left off 
29 * 


342 


GODOLPHIN. 


dreaming. But let me see ; a house in England — you like 
England — some ten or twenty miles from the great Babel: 
books, pictures, statues, and old trees that shall put us in 
mind of our Norman fathers who planted them ; above all, 
a noisy, clear, sunny stream gliding amid them — deer on 
the opposite bank, half hidden among the fern ; and rooks 
over head : a privilege for eccentricity that would allow 
one to be social or solitary as one pleased; and a house 
so full of guests, that to shun them all now and then would 
be no affront to one.” 

“Well,” said Constance, smiling, “go on.” 

“I have finished.” 

“ Finished 1” 

“Yes, my fair Insatiable! What more would you 
have ?” 

“Why, this is but a country life you have been talking 
of; very well in its way for three months in the year.” 

“Italy, then, for the other nine,” returned Godolphin. 

“Ah, Percy !— is pleasure, mere pleasure, vulgar pleas- 
ure, to be really the sole end and aim of life ?” 

“Assuredly I” 

“And action, enterprise — are these as nothing ?” 

Godolphin was silent, but began absently to throw peb- 
bles into the water. The action reminded Constance of 
the first time she had ever seen him among his ancestral 
groves ; and she sighed as she now gazed on a brow from 
which the effeminacy and dreaming of his life had banished 
much of its early chivalric and earnest expression. 


GODOLPIIIN. 


343 


CHAPTER XL Y II 

NEWS OP LUCILLA. 

Oodolphin was about one morning to depart for the 
convent to which Lucilla had flown, when a letter was 
brought to him from the abbess of the convent herself; it 
had followed him from Rome. Lucilla had left her retreat 
. — left it three days before Godolphin’s marriage ; the ab- 
bess knew not whither, but believed she intended to reside 
in Rome. She inclosed him a note from Lucilla, left for 
him before her departure. Short but characteristic ; it 
ran thus : 

LUCILLA TO GODOLPHIN. 

“ I can stay here no longer ; my mind will not submit 
to quiet ; this inactivity wears me to madness. Besides, I 
want to see thy wife. I shail go to Rome ; 1 shall witness 
thy wedding ; and then — ah ! what then ? Give me back, 
Godolphin, oh, give me back the young pure heart I had 
ere I loved you 1 Then, I'could take joy in all things:— 
now! But I will not repine ; it is beneath me. I, the 
daughter of the stars, am no love-sick and nerveless minion 
of a vain regret ; my pride is roused at last, and I feel at 
least the independence of being alone. Wild and roving 
shall be my future life ; that lot which denies me hope, has 
raised me above all fear. Love makes us all the woman ; 
love has left me, and something hard and venturous, some- 
thing that belongs to thy sex, has come in its stead. 


544 GODOLPHIN. 

“ You bave left me money — I thank you — I thank you 
-—I thank you ; my heart almost chokes me as I write this. 
Could you think of me so basely ?— For shame, man ! if my 
child — our child were living (and oh, Percy, she had thine 
eyes 1), I would see her starve inch by inch rather than touch 
one doit of thy bounty! But she is dead— thank God! 
Fear not for me, I shall not starve; these hands can sup- 
port life. God bless thee— loved as thou still art ! If, 
years hence, I should feel my end draw near, I will drag 
myself to thy country, and look once more on thy face be- 
fore I die.” 

Godolphin sunk down, and covered his face with his 
hands. Constance took up the letter. “Ay— read it!” 
said he, in a hollow voice. She did so, and when she had 
finished, the proud Constance, struck by a spirit like her 
own, bathed the letter in her tears. This pleased— this 
touched — this consoled Godolphin more than the most 
elaborate comfortings. 

“Poor girl !” said Constance, through her tears, “this 
must not be ; she must not be left on the wide world to 
her own despairing heart. Let us both go to Rome and 
seek her out. 1 will persuade her to accept what she re- 
fuses from you.” 

Godolphin pressed his wife’s hand, but spoke not. They 
went that day to Rome. Lucilla had departed for Leg- 
horn, and thence taken her passage in a vessel bound to 
the northern coasts of Europe. Perhaps she had sought 
her father’s land ? With that hope, in the absence of°all 
others, they attempted to console themselves. 


aODOLPHIN. 


345 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

IK WHICH TWO PERSONS, PERMANENTLY UNITED, DISCOVER THAT NO 
TIE CAN PRODUCE UNION OF MINDS. 

Weeks passed on, and, apparently, Gj-odolphin had re- 
conciled himself to the disappearance and precarious des- 
tiny of Lucilla. It was not in his calm and brooding 
nature to show much of emotion; but there was often, 
even in the presence of Constance, a cloud on his brow, 
and the fits of abstraction to which he had always been 
accustomed grew upon him more frequently than ever. 
Constance had been inured for years to the most assiduous, 
the most devoted attentions; and now, living much alone 
with Godolphin, she began somewhat to miss them; for 
Godolphin could be a passionate, a romantic, but he could 
not be a very watchful lover. He had no petits soins. 
Few husbands have, it is true ; nor is it necessary for hus- 
bands in general. But Constance was not an ordinary 
woman; she loved deeply, but she loved according to her 
nature — as a woman proud and exacting must love. For 
GDdolphin, her haughty step waxed timorous and vigilant; 
she always sprang forward the first to meet him on his re- 
turn from his solitary ramblings, and he smiled upon her 
with his wonted gentleness — but not so gratefully, thought 
Constance, as he ought. In truth, he had been too much 

accustomed to the eager love of Lucilla, to feel greatly 
29 * 


£46 


GODOLPHIN. 


surprised at any proof of tenderness from Constance. 
Thus, too proud to speak — to hint a complaint, Constance 
was nevertheless perpetually wounded, and by degrees 
(although not loving her husband less) she taught that 
love to be more concealed. Oh, that accursed secretive- 
ness in women, which makes them always belie them- 
selves ! 

Godolphin, too, was not without his disappointments. 
There was something so bright, so purely intellectual 
about Constance’s character, that at times, when brought 
into constant intercourse with her, you longed for some 
human weakness — some wild, warm error on which to re- 
pose. Dazzling and fair as snow, like snow, your ,eye 
ached to gaze upon her. She had, during the years of 
her ungenial marriage, cultivated her mind to the utmost ; 
few women were so accomplished — it might be learned; 
her conversation flowed forever in the same bright, flowery, 
adorned stream. There were times when Godolphin re- 
collected how hard it is to read a volume of that Gibbon, 
who in a page is so delightful. Her affection for him was 
intense, high, devoted ; but it was wholly of the same in- 
tellectual, spiritualized order ; it seemed to Godolphin to 
want human warmth and fondness. In fact, there never 
was a woman who, both by original nature and after-habits, 
was so purely and abstractedly “mind” as was Constance; 
there was not a single trait or taste in her character that 
a sensualist could have sneered at. Her heart was wholly 
Godolphin’s; her mind was generous, sympathizing, lofty; 
her person unrivaled in the majesty of its loveliness ; all 


GODOLPHIN. 


347 


these, too, were Godolphin’s and yet the eternal something 
was wanting still. 

“ 1 have brought you your hat, Percy,” said Constance ; 
“ } 7 ou forget the dews are falling fast, and your head is un- 
covered.” 

“ Thank you,” said Percy, gently ; yet Constance thought 
the tone might have been warmer. “ How beautiful is this 
hour ! Look yonder, the sun’s ray still upon those im- 
mortal hills — that lone gray tower among the far plains — 
the pines around — hearken to their sighing ! These are 
indeed the scenes of the Dryad and the Paun. These are 
scenes where we could melt our whole nature down to love : 
Nature never meant us for the stern and arid destinies we 
fulfill. Look round, Constance, in every leaf of her gor- 
geous book, how glowingly i& written the one sentence, 

< Love, and be happy 1* You answer not ; to these 
thoughts you are cold.” 

“ They breathe too much of the Epicurean and his rose- 
leaves for me,” answered Constance, smilingly. “I love 
better that stern old tower, telling of glorious strife and 
great deeds, than all the softer landscape, on which the 
present debasement of the south seems written.” 

“You and your English,” said Godolphin, somewhat 
bitterly, “prate of the debasement of my poor Italians in 
a jargon that I confess almost enrages me.” (Constance 
colored and bit her lip.) “Debasement! why debasement? 
They enjoy themselves ; they take from life its just moral ; 
they do not affect the more violent crimes ; they feel their 
mortality, follow its common ends, are frivolous, contented, 


348 


GODOLPHIN. 


and die 1 Well; this is debasement. — Be it so. But for 
what would you exchange it ? The hard, cold, ferocious 
guilt of ancient Rome ; the detestable hypocrisy, the secret 
villainy, fraud, murder, that stamped republican Venice ? 
The days of glory that you lament are the days of the 
darkest guilt ; and man shudders when he reads what the 
fair moralizers over the soft and idle Italy sigh to recall 1” 

“You are severe,” said Constance, with a pained voice. 

Forgive me, dearest, but you are often severe on my 
feelings.” 

Constance was silent ; the magic of the sunset was gone ; . 
they walked back to the house, thoughtful, and somewhat 
cooled toward each other. 

Another day, on which the rain forbade them to stir 
from home, Godolphin, after he had remained long silent 
and meditating, said to Constance, who was busy writing 
letters to her political friends, in which, avoiding Italy and 
love, the scheming countess dwelt only on busy England 
and its eternal politics, — 

“Will you read to me, dear Constance? my spirits are 
sad to-day 1 the weather affects them !” 

Constance laid aside her letters, and took up one of the 
many books that strewed the table : it was a volume of one 
of our most popular poets. 

“I hate poetry,” said Godolphin, languidly. 

“ Here is Machiavel’s history of the Prince of Lucca,’ 
said Constance, quickly. 

“Ah, read that, and see how odious is ambition,” re* 
turned Godolphin. 


i 


U0D0LPH1N. 


340 


And Constance read, but she warmed at what Godol- 
phin’s lip curled with disdain. The sentiments, however, 
drew him from his apathy ; and presently, with the elo- 
quence he could command when once excited, he poured 
forth the doctrines of his peculiar philosophy. Constance 
listened, delighted and absorbed ; she did not sympathize 
with the thought, but she was struck with the genius which 
clothed it. 

“Ah!” said she, with enthusiasm, “why should those 
brilliant words be thus spoken and lost forever? Why not 
stamp them on the living page, or why not invest' them in 
the oratory that would render you illustrious and them im- 
mortal.” 

“Excellent!” said Godolphin, laughing: “the House 
of Commons would sympathize with philosophy warmly I” 

Yet Constance was right on the whole. But the curse 
of a life of pleasure is its aversion to useful activity. Talk 
of the genius that lies crushed and obscure in poverty J 
Wealth and station have also their mute Miltons and in- 
glorious Hampdens. Alas ! how much of deep and true 
wisdom do we meet among the triflers of the world ! How 
much that in the stern middle walks of life would have ob- 
tained renown, in the withering and relaxed air of loftier 
rank dies away unheeded ! The two extremes meet ia 
this, — the destruction of mental gifts. 


30 


350 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER XL I X. 

THE RETURN TO LONDON — THE ETERNAL NATURE OF DISAPPOINT • 
MENT — FANNY MILLINGER — HER HOUSE AND SUPPER. 

It was in the midst of spring, and at the approach of 
night, that our travelers entered London. After an ab- 
sence of some duration, there is a singular emotion on 
returning to the roar and tumult of that vast city. Its 
bustle, its life, its wealth — the tokens of the ambition and 
commerce of the Great Island Race — have something of 
inconceivable excitement and power, after the comparative 
desertion and majestic stillness of Continental cities. Con- 
stance leaned restlessly forth from the window of the car- 
riage as it whirled on. 

“Oh that I were a man 1” said she, fervently. 

“And why ?” asked Godolphin, smilingly. 

“ Why ! Look out on this broad theater of universal 
ambition, and read the why. What a proud and various 
career lies open in this free city to every citizen 1 Look, 
look yonder — the old hereditary senate, still eloquent with 
high memories.” 

“And close by it,” said Godolphin, sneering, “behold 
the tomb 1” ^ 

“Yes, but the tomb of great men 1” said Constance, 
eagerly. 

“ The victims of their greatness.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


351 


There was a pause ; Constance would not reply, she 
would scarcely listen. 

“And do you feel no excitement, Percy, in the hum and 
bustle — the lights, the pomp of your native city ?” 

“Yes; I am in the mart where all enjoyment may be 
purchased.” 

“Ah, fie !” 

Godolphin drew his cloak round him, and put up the 
window. “ These cursed east winds 1” 

Yery true — they are the curse of the country ! 

The carriage stopped at the stately portico of Erping- 
ham House. Godolphin felt a little humiliated at being 
indebted to another — to a woman, for so splendid a- tene- 
ment ; but Constance, not penetrating into his sentiment, 
hastened up the broad stairs, and said, pointing to a door 
that led to her boudoir : 

“In that room cabinets have been formed and shaken.” 

Godolphin laughed ; he was alive only to the vanity of 
the boast, because he shared not the enthusiasm ; this was 
Constance’s weak point : her dark eye flashed fire. 

There’s nothing bores a man more than the sort of un- 
easy quiet that follows a day’s journey. Godolphin took 
his hat, and vawningly stretching himself, nodded to Con- 
stance, and moved to the door ; they were in her dressing- 
room at the time. 

“ Why, what, Percy, you cannot be going out now I” 

“ Indeed I am, my love.” 

“Where, in Heaven’s name?” 

“ To White’s, to learn the news of the Opera, and the 
strength of the Ballet.” 


352 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ I had just rung for lights, to show you the house !” 
said Constance, disappointed and half reproachfully. 

11 Mercy, Constance ! damp rooms and east winds to- 
gether are too much. House, indeed ! what can there be 
worth seeing in your English drawing-rooms after the mar- 
ble palaces of Italy ? Any commands ?” 

“None!” said Constance, sinking back into her chair, 
with the tears in her eyes. Godolphin did not perceive 
them ; he was only displeased by the cold tone of her an- 
swer, and he shut the door, muttering to himself — “Was 
there ever such indelicate ostentation 1” 

“And thus,” said Constance, bitterly, “I return to Eng- 
land; friendless, unloved, solitary in my schemes and my 
heart as I was before. Awake, my soul ! tliou art my sole 
strength, my sole support. Weak, weak that I was, to 

love this man in Spite of Well, well, I am not sunk 

so low as to regret.” 

So saying, she wiped away a few tears, and turning with 
a strong effort from softer thoughts, leaned her cheek on 
her band, and gazing on the fire, surrendered herself to the 
sterner and more plotting meditations which her return to 
the circle of her old ambition had at first called forth. 

Meanwhile Godolphin sauntered into the then arch-club 
of St. James’s, that reservoir of idle exquisites and kid- 
gloved politicians. There are two classes of popular men 
in London : the sprightly, joyous, good-humored set ; the 
quiet, gentle, sarcastic herd. The one are fellows called 
devilish good — the other, fellows called devilish gentle- 
man-like. To the latter class belonged Godolphin. As 


GODOLPHIN. 


353 


he had never written a boob, nor set up for a genius, his 
cleverness was tacitly allowed to be no impediment to his 
good qualities. Nothing atones for the sin, in the eyes of 
those young gentlemen who create for their contemporaries 
reputation, of having in any way distinguished one’s self. 

“ He’s such a d d bore, that man with his books and 

poetry,” said an arch-dandy of Byron, just after “ Childe 
Harold” had turned the heads of the women. There 
happened to be a knot assembled at White’s when Godol- 
phin entered ; they welcomed him affectionately. 

“Wish you joy, old fellow,” said one. “Bless me, Go- 
dolphin 1 well, I am delighted to see you,” cried another. 
“So, you have monopolized Lady Erpingham ! — lucky 
dog I” whispered a third. 

Godolphin, his vanity soothed by the reception he hiet 
with, spent his evening at the club. The habit began, 
became easy — Godolphin spent many evenings at his club. 
Constance, running the round of her acquaintance, was too 
proud to complain. Perhaps complaint would not hav^} 
mended the matter : but one word of delicate tenderness, 
or one look that asked for his society, and White’s would 
have been forsaken 1 Godolphin secretly resented the vei y 
evenness of temper he had once almost overprized. 

“Oh, Godolphin,” one evening whispered a young lord, 
“we sup at the little actress’s , — the Millinger; you re- 
member the Millinger ? You must come ; you are an old 
favorite, you know: she’ll be so glad to see you, — all in- 
nocent, by-the-way: Lady Erpingham need not be jeal- 
ous ” — (jealous ! Constance jealous of Fanny Millinger !) — 
30 * 


x 


354 


GODOLPHIN. 


“all innocent. Come, I’ll drive you there; my cab is at 
the door.” 

“Anything better than a lecture on ambition,” thought 
Godolphin ; and he consented. Godolphin’s friend was a 
lively young nobleman, of that good-natured, easy, uncap- 
tious temper, which a clever, susceptible, indolent man 
often likes better than comrades more intellectual, because 
he has not to put himself out of his way in the comrade- 
ship. Lord Falconer rattled on, as they drove along the 
brilliant streets, through a thousand topics, of which Go- 
dolphin heard as much as he pleased ; and Falconer was 
of that age and those spirits when a listener may be easily 
dispensed with. 

They arrived at a little villa at Brompton : there was a 
little garden round it, and a little bower in one corner, 
all kept excessively neat ; and the outside of the house 
had just been painted white from top to bottom ; and 
there was a veranda to the house ; and the windows were 
plate-glass, with mahogany sashes — only, here and there, 
a Gothic casement was stuck in by way of looking “ tasty ;” 
and through one window on the ground floor, the lights, 
shining within, showed crimson silk and gilded chairs, and 
all sorts of finery— Louis Quatorze in a nutshell 1 The 
reader knows the sort of house as well as if he had lisred 
in it. Ladies of Fanny Millinger’s turn of mind always 
choose the same kind of habitation. It is astonishing 
what an unanimity of taste they have ; and young men 
about town call it “taste” too, and imitate the fashion in 
their own little tusculums in Chapel Street. 


GODOLPHIN. 


355 


After having threaded a Gothic hall four feet by eight, 
and an oval conservatory with a river- god in the middle, 
the two visitors found themselves in the presence of Fanny 
Millinger. 

Godolphin had certainly felt no small curiosity to see 
again the frank, fair, laughing face which had shone on his 
boyhood, and his mind ran busily back to that summer 
evening when, with a pulse how different from its present 
languid tenor, and a heart burning with ardor and the 
pride of novel independence, the young adventurer first 
sallied on the world. He drew back involuntarily as he 
now gazed on the actress : she had kept the promise of 
her youth, and grown round and full in her proportions. 
She was extravagantly dressed, but not with an ungrace- 
ful, although a theatrical choice : her fair hands and arms 
were covered with jewels, and that indescribable air which 
betrays the stage was far more visibly marked in her de- 
portment than when Godolphin first knew her ; yet still 
there was the same freedom as of old, the same joyous- 
ness, and good-humored carelessness in her manner, and in 
the silver ring of her voice, as she greeted Falconer, and 
turned to question him as to his friend. Godolphin 
dropped his cloak, and the next moment, with a pretty 
scream, quite stage-effect, and yet quite natural, the actress 
had thrown herself into his arms. 

“ Oh 1 but I forgot,” said she presently, with a mock 
salutation of respect, “you are married now; there will be 
no more cakes and ale. Ah ! what long years since we 
met; yet I have never quite forgotten you, although the 


356 


GODOLPIIIN. 


stage requires all one’s memory for one’s new parts. Alas ! 
your hair — it was so beautiful — it has lost half its curl, 
and grown thin. Yery rude in me to say so, but I always 
speak the truth, and my heart warms to see you, so all its 
thoughts thaw out.” 

“Well,” said Lord Falconer, wh-o had been playing 
with a little muffy sort of dog, “you’ll recollect me pres- 
ently.” 

“ You ! Oh ! one never thinks of you, except when you 
speak, and then one recollects you — to look at the clock.” 

“Yery good, Fanny — very good, Fan : and when do you 
expect Windsor ? — He ought to be here soon. Tell me, 
do you like him really ?” 

“Like him ? — yes, excessively ; just the word for him — 
for you all. If love were thrown into the stream of life, 
my little sail would be upset in an instant. But in truth, 
what with dressing, and playing, and all the grave busi- 
ness of life, I am not idle enough to love. And oh, Go- 
dolphin, I’m so improved 1 Ask Lord Falconer if I dou’t 
sing like an angel, although my voice is hardly strong 
enough to go round a loo-table; but on the stage, one 
learns to dispense with all qualities. It is a curious thing, 
that fictitious existence, side by side with the real one ! 
We live in enchantment, Percy, and enjoy what the poets 
pretend to.” 

The dreaming Godolphin was struck by the remark. 
He was surprised, also, to see how much Fanny remained 
the same. A life of gayety had not debased her. 

Tom Windsor came next, an Irishman of five and forty 


godolphin. 


35T 


not like his countrymen in aught save wit. Thin, small, 
shriveled, but up to his ears in knowledge of the world, 
and with a jest forever on his tongue; rich and gay,— he 
was always popular, and he made the most of this little 
life without being an absolute rascal. Next dropped in 
the handsome Frenchman, De Damville ; next the young 
gambler, St. John ; next two ladies, both actresses ; and 
the party was complete. 

The supper was in keeping with the house; the best 
wines, excellent vivands — the actress had grown rich 
Wit, noise, good humor, anecdote flashed round with the 
champagne; and Godolphin, exhilarated into a second 
youth, fancied himself once more the votary of pleasure 


CHAPTER L 

GODOLPHIN’ S SOLILOQUY — HE BECOMES A MAN OP PLEASURE AND A 
PATRON OP THE ARTS — A NEW CHARACTER SHADOWED FORTH; FOR 
AS WE ADVANCE, WHETHER IN LIFE OR ITS REPRESENTATION, CHAR- 
ACTERS ARE MORE FAINT AND DIMLY DRAWN THAN IN THE EARLIER 
PART OF OUR CAREER. 

“ Yes,” said Godolphin, the next morning, as he solilo- 
quized over his lonely breakfast-table — lonely, for the hours 
of the restless Constance were not those of the luxurious 
and indolent Godolphin, and she was already in her car- 
riage — nay, already closeted with an intriguing ambassa- 
dress : “yes; I have passed two eras of life — the first of 
romance, the second of contemplation ; once my favorite 


358 


GODOLPHIN. 


study was poetry — next, philosophy. Now, returned to 
my native country, rich, settled, yet young, new objects 
arise to me ; not that vulgar and troublous ambition 
(which is to make a toil of life) that Constance suggests, 
but a more warm and vivid existence than that I have 
lately dreamed away. Let luxury and pleasure now be to 
me what solitude and thought were. I have been too long 
the solitary, I will learn to be social. ” 

Agreeably to this resolution, Godolphin returned with 
avidity to the enjoyment of the world ; he found himself 
courted, he courted society in return. Erpingham House 
had been for years the scene of fascination : who does not 
recollect the yet greater refinement which its new lord 
threw over its circles ? A delicate and just conception of 
the fine arts had always characterized Godolphin. He 
now formed that ardor for collecting common to the more 
elegant order of minds. From his beloved Italy he im- 
ported the most beautiful statues — his cabinets were filled 
with gems — his walls glowed with the triumphs of the can- 
vas — the showy but heterogeneous furniture of Erping- 
ham House gave way to a more classic and perfect taste. 
The same fastidiousness which, in the affairs of the heart, 
had characterized Godolphin’s habits and sentiments, char- 
acterized his new pursuits ; the same thirst for the Ideal, 
the same worship of the Beautiful, and aspirations after 
the Perfect. 

It was not in Constance’s nature to admit this smaller 
ambition ; her taste was pure but not minute ; she did not 
descend to the philosophy of detail. But she was glad 


GODOLPHIN. 


359 


still to see that Godolphin could be aroused to the dis- 
covery of an active object ; and, although she sighed to 
perceive his fine genius frittered away on the trifles of the 
virtuoso— although she secretly regretted the waste of her 
great wealth (which afforded to political ambition so high 
an advantage) on the mute marble, and what she deemed, 
nor unjustly, frivolous curiosities,— she still never inter- 
fered with Godolphin’s caprices, conscious that, to his 
delicacy, a single objection to his wishes on the score of 
expense would have reminded him of what she wished him 
most to forget, viz., that the means of this lavish expen- 
diture were derived from her. She hoped that his mind, 
once fairly awakened, would soon grow sated with the ac- 
quisition of baubles, and at length sigh for loftier objects ; 
and, in the mean while, she plunged into her old party plots 
and ambitious intrigues. 

Erpingham House, celebrated as ever for the beauty of 
its queen and for the political nature of its entertainments, 
received a new celebrity from its treasures of art and the 
spiritual wit and grace with which Godolphin invested its 
attractions. Among the crowd of its guests there was one 
whom its owners more particularly esteemed — Stainforth 
Radclyffe was still considerably under thirty, but already a 
distinguished man. At school he had been distinguished ; 
at college distinguished ; and now in the world of science 
distinguished also. Beneath a quiet, soft, and cold exte- 
rior, he concealed the most resolute and persevering ambi- 
tion ; and this ambition was the governing faculty of his 
soul His energies were undistracted by small objects; for 


360 


GODOLPHIN. 


he went little into general society, and he especially sought 
in his studies those pursuits which nerve and brace the 
mind. He was a profound thinker, a deep political econo- 
mist, an accurate financier, a judge of the intricacies of 
morals and legislation — for to his mere book-studies Le 
added an instinctive penetration into men ; and when from 
time to time he rejoined the world, he sought out those 
most distinguished in the sciences he had cultivated, and 
by their lights corrected his own. In him there was nothing 
desultory or undetermined; his conduct was perpetual cal- 
culation. He did nothing but with an eye to a final object; 
and when, to the superficial, he seemed most to wander 
from the road their prudence would have suggested, he 
was only seeking the surest and shortest paths. Yet his 
ambition was not the mere vulgar thirst for getting on in 
the world; he cared little for the paltry place, the petty 
power which may reward what are called aspiring young 
men. His clear sight penetrated to objects that seemed 
wrapped in shade to all others; and to those only, dis- 

tant, but vast and towering, — he deigned to attach his de- 
sires. He cared not for small and momentary rewards ; 
and while always (for he knew its necessity) uppermost on 
the tide of the hour, he had neither joy nor thought for the 
petty honors for which he was envied, and by which he was 
supposed to be elated. Always occupied and always 
thoughtful, he went, as I have just said, very little into 
the gay world, and was not very well formed to shine in it 
when there ; for trifles require the whole man as much as 
matters of importance. He did not want either wit or 


GODOLPHIN. 


sei 

polish, but he tasked his powers too severely on great sub- 
jects not to be sometimes dull upon small ones ; yet, when 
he was either excited or at home, he was not without — 
what man of genius is? — his peculiar powers of conversa- 
tion. There was in this young, dark, brooding, stern man, 
that which had charmed Constance at first sight; she 
thought to recognize a nature like her own, and Radclyffe’s 
venturous spirit exulted in a commune with hers. Their 
politics were the same ; their ultimate ends not very un- 
like ; and their common ambition furnished them with an 
eternity of topics and schemes. Radclyffe was Constance’s 
guest; — but Gbdolphin soon grew attached to the young 
politician, though he shrugged his shoulders at his opin- 
ions. In youth, Godolphin had been a Tory — now, if 
anything, he was a Tory still. Such a political creed was 
perhaps the natural result of his philosophical belief. Con- 
stance, Whig by profession, ultra- Liberal in reality, still 
however gave the character to the politics of the House ; 
and the easy Godolphin thought politics the veriest of all 
the trifles which a man could leave to the discretion of the 
lady of his household. We may judge, therefore, of the 
quiet, complacent amusement he felt in the didactics of 
Radclyffe or the declamations of Constance. 

“That is a dangerous, scheming woman, believe me,” 
said the Duchess of to her great husband, one morn- 

ing, when Constance left her Grace. 

“Nonsense! women are never dangerous.” 


31 


S62 


GODOLPHIN 


CHAPTER LI. 

SODOLPHIN’S COURSE OF LIFE — INFLUENCE OF OPINION AND OF RIDI- 
CULE ON THE MINDS OF PRIVILEGED ORDERS — LADY ERPINGHAM’S 
FRIENDSHIP WITH GEORGE THE FOURTH — HIS MANNER OF LIVING. 

The course of life which Godolphiu now led was ex- 
actly that which it is natural for a very rich intellectual 
man to indulge — voluptuous, but refined. He was arriving 
at that age when the poetry of the heart necessarily de- 
cays. Wealth almost unlimited was at his command; he 
had no motive for exertion ; and he now sought in pleasure 
that which he had formerly asked from romance. As his 
faculties and talents had no other circle for display than 
that which “society” affords; so by slow degrees, society 
. — its applause and its regard — became to him of greater 
importance than his “philosophy dreamt of.” Whatever 
the circle we live among, the public opinion of that circle 
will, sooner or later, obtain a control over us. This is the 
reason why a life of pleasure makes even the strongest 
mind frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the man 
of letters, all are insensibly guided — moulded — formed — by 
the judgment of the tribe they belong to, and the circle in 
which they move. Still more is it the case with the idlers 
of the great world, among whom the only main staple cf 
talk is “themselves.” 

And in the last-named set, Ridicule, being more strong 


GODOLPHIN. 


363 


and fearful a deity than she is among the cultivators of the 
graver occupations of life, reduces the inmates, by a con- 
stant dread of incurring her displeasure, to a more monot- 
onous and regular subjection to the judgment of others. 
Ridicule is the stifler of all energy among those she con- 
trols. After a man’s position in society is once establish- 
ed — after he has arrived at a certain age — he does not like 
to hazard any intellectual enterprise which may endanger 
the quantum of respect or popularity at present allotted to 
him. ' He does not like to risk a failure in parliament — a 
caustic criticism in literature : he does not like to excite 
new jealousies, and provoke angry rivals where he now 
finds complaisant inferiors. The most admired authors, 
the most respected members of either house, now looked 
up to Godolphin as a man of wit and genius ; a man whose 
house, whose wealth, whose wife, gave him an influence 
few individuals enjoy. Why risk all this respect by pro- 
voking comparison? Among the first in one line, why 
sink into the probability of being second-rate in another ? 

This motive, which secretly governs half the aristocracy 

the cleverer half, viz., the more diffident and the more 

esteemed ; which leaves to the obtuse and the vain a de- 
spised and unenviable notoriety ; added new force to Go- 
dolphin’s philosophical indifference to ambition. Perhaps, 
had his situation been less brilliant, or had he persevered 
in that early affection for solitude which youth loves as 
the best nurse to its dreams, he might now, in attaining 
an age when ambition, often dumb before, usually begins 
to make itself heard, have awakened to a more re."olute 


364 


GODOLPHIN. 


and aspiring temperament of mind. But, as it was, courted 
and surrounded by all the enjoyments which are generally 
the reward to which exertion looks, even an ambitious 
man might have forgotten his nature. No wound to his 
vanity, no feeling that he was underrated (that great spur 
to proud minds) excited him to those exertions we under- 
take in order to belie calumny. He was “the glass of 
fashion, ” at once popular and admired : and his good for- 
tune in marrying the celebrated, the wealthy, the beautiful 
Countess of Erpingham was, as success always is, consid- 
ered the proof of his genius, and the token of his merits. 

It was certainly true, that a secret and mutual disap- 
pointment rankled beneath the brilliant lot of the husband 
and wife. Godolphin exacted from Constance more soft- 
ness, more devotion, more compliance than belonged to 
her nature ; and Constance, on the other hand, ceased not 
to repine that she found in Godolphin no sympathy with 
her objects, and no feeling for her enthusiasm. As there 
was little congenial in their pursuits, the one living for 
pleasure, the other for ambition, so there could be no con- 
geniality in their intercourse. They loved each other 
still ; they loved each other warmly ; they never quarreled ; 
for the temper of Constance was mild, and that of Godol- 
phiu generous ; but neither believed there was much love 
on the other side ; and both sought abroad that fellowship 
and those objects they had not in common at home. 

Constance was a great favorite with the reigning king; 
she was constantly invited to the narrow circle of festivi- 
ties at Windsor. Godolphin, who avoided the being bored 


GODOLPHIN. 


36 ,* 

as the greatest of earthly evils, could not bow down his 
tastes and habits to any exact and precise order of life, 
however distinguished the circle in which it became the 
rule. Thirsting to be amused, he could not conjugate the 
active verb “to amuse.” No man was more fitted to adorn 
a court, yet no man could less play the courtier. He ad- 
mired the manners of the sovereign, — he did homage to 
the natural acuteness of his understanding ; but, accus- 
tomed as he was to lay down the law in society, he was 
too proud to receive it from another, — a common case 
among those who live with the great by right, and not 
through sufferance. His pride made him fear to seem a 
parasite; and, too chivalrous to be disloyal, he was too 
haughty to be subservient. In fact, he was thoroughly 
formed to be the Great Aristocrat, — a career utterly dis- 
tinct from that of the Hanger-on upon a still greater 
man ; and against his success at court, he had an obstacle 
no less in the inherent fierte of his nature than in the ac- 
quired philosophy of his cynicism. 

The king, at first, was civil enough to Lady Erping- 
ham’s husband ; but he had penetration enough to see that 
he was not adequately admired : and on the first demon- 
stration of royal coolness, Godolphin, glad of an excuse, 
forswore Castle and Pavilion forever, and left Constance 
to enjoy alone the honors of the regal hospitality. The 
world would have insinuated scandal ; but there was that 
about Constance’s beauty which there is said by one of 
the poets to belong to an angel’s — it struck the heart,' 
but awed the senses. 


31 * 


366 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER LII. 

RADCLYFFE AND GODOLPHIN CONVERSE — THE VARIETIES OF 
AMBITION. 

“ I don’t know,” said Godolphin to Radclyffe, as they 
were one day riding together among the green lanes that 
border the metropolis, “ I don’t know what to do with 
myself this evening. Lady Erpingham is gone to Wind- 
sor ; I have no dinner engagement, and I am wearied of 
balls. Shall we dine together, and go to the play quietly, 
as we might have done some ten years ago V' 

“Nothing I should like better; — and the theater — are 
you fond of it now ? I think I have heard you say that it 
once made your favorite amusement.” 

“I still like it passably,” answered Godolphin; “but 
the gloss is gone from the delusion. I am grown mourn- 
fully fastidious. I must have excellent acting — an excel- 
lent play. A slight fault — a slight deviation from nature 
— robs me of my content at the whole.” 

“ The same fault in your character pervading all things,” 
said Radclyffe, half smiling. 

“ True,” said Godolphin, yawning ; — “ but have you seen 
my new Canova ?” 

“No : I care nothing for statues, and I know nothing of 
the Fine Arts.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


36T 


“What a confession 1” 

“Yes, it is a rare confession : but I suspect that the 
Arts, like truffles and olives, are an acquired taste. Peo- 
ple talk themselves into admiration, where at first they 
felt indifference. But how can you, Godolphin, with your 
talents, fritter away life on these baubles ?” 

“You are civil,” said Godolphin, impatiently. “Allow 
me to tell you that it is your objects I consider baubles. 
Your dull, plodding, wearisome honors; a name in the 
newspapers — a place, perhaps, in the Ministry — purchased 
by a sacrificed youth and a degraded manhood — a youth 
in labor, a manhood in schemes. No, Radclyffe ! give me 
the bright, the glad sparkle of existence ; and, ere the sad 
years of age and sickness, let me at least enjoy. That is 

wisdom 1 Your creed is But I will not imitate your 

rudeness 1” and Godolphin laughed. 

“Certainly,” replied Radclyffe, “you do your best to 
enjoy yourself. You live well, and fare sumptuously: 
your house is superb, your villa enchanting. Lady Erp- 
ingham is the handsomest woman of her time: and, as if 
that were not enough, half the fine women in London 
admit you at their feet. Yet you are not happy.” 

“Ay: but who is?” cried Godolphin, energetically. 

“I am,” said Radclyffe, dryly. 

“You ! — humph 1” 

“You disbelieve me.” 

“ T have no right to do so : but are you not ambitious ? 
And is not ambition full of anxiety, care,— mortification 
at defeat, disappointment in success ? Does not the very 


368 


GODOLPHIN. 


word ambition — that is, a desire to be something you are 
not — prove you discontented with what you are ?” 

‘‘You speak of a vulgar ambition,” said Radclyffe. 

“ Most august sage ! — and what species of ambition is 
yours ?” 

“Not that which you describe. You speak of the am- 
bition for self ; my ambition is singular — it is the ambition 
for others. Some years ago, I chanced to form an object 
in what I considered the welfare of my race. You smile. 
Nay, I boast no virtue in my dream; but philanthropy 
was my hobby as statues may be yours. To effect this 
object, I see great changes are necessary : I desire, I 
work for these great changes. I am not blind, in the 
mean while, to glory. I desire, on the contrary, to obtain 
it; but it would only please me if it came from certain 
sources. I want to feel that I may realize what I attempt ; 
and wish for that glory that comes from the permanent 
gratitude of my species, not that which springs from their 
momentary applause. Now, I am vain, very vain : vanity 
was, some years ago, the strongest characteristic of my 
nature. I do not pretend to conquer the weakness, but 
to turn it toward my purposes. I am vain enough to wish 
to shine, but the light must come from deeds I think really 
worthy.” 

“ Well, well I” said Godolphin, a little interested in spite 
of himself ; “ but ambition of one sort resembles ambition 
of another, inasmuch as it involves perpetual harassments 
and humiliations.” 

“ Not so,” answered Radclyffe “ because when a man 


GODOLPIIIN. 


369 


is striving for what he fancies a laudable object, the good- 
ness of his intentions comforts him for a failure in success, 
whereas your selfishly ambitious man has no consolation in 
his defeats ; he is humbled by the external world, and has 
no inner world to apply to for consolation.” 

“ Oh, man 1” said Godolphin, almost bitterly, “how 
dost thou eternally deceive thyself 1 Here is the thirst for 
power, and it. calls itself the love of mankind.” 

“ Believe me,” said Badclyffe, so earnestly, and with so 
deep a meaning in his grave, bright eyes, that Godolphin 
was staggered from his skepticism ; — “ believe me, they 
may be distinct passions, and yet can be united ” 


CHAPTER L 1 1 1. 

FANNY BEHIND THE SCENES REMINISCENCES OF YOUTH — THE UNI 

VERSALITY OF TRICK THE SUPPER AT FANNY MILLINGER’S — 

TALK ON A THOUSAND MATTERS, EQUALLY LIGHT AND TRUE — • 
fanny’s SONG. 

The play was “Pizarro,” and Fanny Millinger acted 
Cora. Godolphin and Radclyffe went behind the scenes. 

“Ah 1” said Fanny, as she stood in her white Peruvian 
dress, waiting her turn to re-enter the stage,— “ah, Go- 
dolphin ! this reminds me of old times. How many years 
have passed since you used to take such pleasure in this 
mimic life ! Well do I remember your musing eye and 
31* Y 


370 


GODOLPHIN. 


thoughtful brow bent kindly on me from the stage-box 
yonder: and do you recollect how prettily you used to 
moralize on the deserted scenes when the play was over? 
And you sometimes waited on these very boards to escort 
me home. Those times have changed. Heigho 1” 

“Ay, Fanny, we have passed through new worlds of 
feeling since then. Could life be to us now what it was 
at that time, we might love each other anew : but tell me, 
Fanny, has not the experience of life made you a wiser 
woman ? Do you not seek more to enjoy the present — to 
pluck Time’s fruit on the bough, ere yet the ripeness is 
gone ? I do. I dreamed away my youth — I strive to 
enjoy my manhood.” 

“ Then,” said Fanny, with that quickness with which, in 
matters of the heart, women beat all our philosophy — 
“then I can prophesy that, since we parted, you have 
loved or lost some one. Regret, which converts the active 
mind into the dreaming temper, makes the dreamer hurry 
into activity, whether of business or of pleasure.” 

“ Right,” said Radclyffe, as a shade darkened his stern 
trow. 

“Right,” said Godolphin, thoughtfully, and Lucilla’s 
image smote his heart like an avenging conscience. 
“Right,” repeated he, turning aside and soliloquizing; 
“and those words from an idle tongue have taught me 
some of the motives of my present conduct. But away 
reflection 1 I have resolved to forswear it. My pretty 
Cora 1” said he aloud, as he turned back to the actress, 
“you are a very De Stael in your wisdom : but let us not 


GODOLPHIN. 


371 


be wise ; *tis the worst of our follies. Do you not give 
us one of your charming suppers to-night ?” 

“ To be sure : your friend will join us. He was once 
the gayest of the gay ; but years and fame have altered 
him a little.” 

“Radclyffe gay! Bah!” said Godolphin, surprised. 

“Ay, you may well look astonished,” said Fanny, archly ; 

“ but note that smile— it tells of old days.” 

And Godolphin, turning to his friend, saw indeed on the 
thin lip of that earnest face a smile so buoyant, so joyous, 
that it seemed as if the whole character of the man were 
gone : but while he gazed, the smile vanished, and Rad- 
clyffe gravely declined the invitation. 

Cora was now on the stage: a transport of applause 
shook the house. 

» How well she acts !” said Radclyffe, warmly. 

“Yes,” answered Godolphin, as with folded arms he 
looked quietly on ; “ but what a lesson in the human heart 
does good acting teach us. Mark that glancing eye— 
that heaving breast— that burst of passion — that agonized 
voice: the spectators are in tears! The woman’s whole 
soul is in her child ! Not a bit of it ! She feels no more 
than the boards we tread on : she is probably thinking of 
the lively supper we shall have; and when she comes off 
the stage, she will cry, ‘ Did I not act it well ? ” 

“Nay,” said Radclyffe, “she probably feels while she 
depicts the feeling.” 

“ Not she : years ago she told me the whole science of 
acting was trick; and trick — trick— trick it is, on the 


372 


GODOLPHIN. 


stage or off. The noble art of oratory — (noble, forsooth I) 
— is just the same : philosophy, poetry — all, all hypocrisy. 

* Damn the moon !’ said B to me, as we once stood 

gazing on it at Venice; ‘it always gives me the ague: 
but I have described it well in my poetry, Godolphin— 
eh V ” 

“But ■,” began Radclyffe. 

“But me no buts,” interrupted Godolphin, with the 
playful pertinacity which he made so graceful: “you are 
younger than I am; when you have lived as long, you 
shall have a right to contradict my system — not before. ” 

Godolphin joined the supper party. Like Godolphiu’s, 
Fanny’s life was the pursuit of pleasure : she lavished on 
it, in proportion to’ her means, the same cost and expense, 
though she wanted the same taste and refinement. -Gen- 
erous and profuse, like all her tribe— like all persons who 
win money easily— she was charitable to all and luxuri- 
ous in herself. The supper was attended by four male 
guests Godolphin, Saville, Lord Falconer, and Mr. 
Windsor. 

It was early summer : the curtains were undrawn, the 
windows half opened, and the moonlight slept on the little 
grassplot that surrounded the house. The guests were iu 
high spirits. “Fill me this goblet,” cried Godolphin; 
“champagne is the boy’s liquor; I will return to it con 
amove. Fanny, let us pledge each other : stay : a toast 1 
— What shall it be ?” 

“Hope, till old age, and Memory afterward,” said 
Fanny, smiling. 


GODOLPHIN. 


373 


“ Pshaw ! theatricals still, Fan ?” growled Saville, who 
had placed a large screen between himself and the win- 
dow; “no sentiment between friends.” 

“Out on you, Saville,” said Godolphin ; “ as well might 
you say no music out of the opera ; these verbal pretti- 
nesses color conversation. But you roues are so d d 

prosaic ; you want us to walk to Vice without a flower by 
the way.” 

“ Vice, indeed I” cried Saville. “ I abjure your villain- 
ous appellatives. It was in your companionship that I 
lost my character, and now you turn king’s evidence 
against the poor devil you seduced.” 

“ Humph 1” cried Godolphin, gayly; “you remind me 
of the advice of the Spanish hidalgo to a servant : always 
choose a master with a good memory: for, ‘if he does not 
pay, he will at least remember that he owes you.’ In 
future, I shall take care to herd only with those who re- 
collect, after they are finally debauched, all the good advice 
I gave them beforehand.” 

“Meanwhile,” said the pretty Fanny, with her arch mouth 
half full of chicken, “ I shall recollect that Mr. Saville 
drinks his wine without toasts — as being a useless 
delay.’ 

“Wne,” said Mr. Windsor, sententiously, “ wine is just 
the reverse of love. Your old topers are all for coming at 
once to the bottle, and your old lovers forever mumbling 
the toast.” 

“See what you have brought on yourself, Saville, by 
32 


374 


GODOLPHIN. 


affecting a joke upon me,” said Godolphin : “ Come, let 
us make it up : we fell out with the toast — let us be recon- 
ciled by the glass. — Champagne ?” 

“Ay, anything for a quiet life, — even champagne,” said 
Saville, with a mock air of patience, and dropping his 
sharp features into a state of the most placid repose. 
“You wits are so very severe. Yes, champagne if you 
please. Fanny, my love,” and Saville made a wry face as 
he put down the scarce-tasted glass, “ go on — another joke, 
if you please ; I now find I can bear your satire better, at 
least, than your wine.” 

Fanny was all bustle : it is in these things that the 
actress differs from the lady — there is no quiet in her. 
“Another bottle of champagne : — what can have hap- 
pened to this ?” Poor Fanny was absolutely pained. 
Saville enjoyed it, for he always revenged a jest by an im- 
pertinence. 

“Nay,” said Godolphin, “our friend does but joke. 
Your champagne is excellent, Fanny. Well, Saville, and 
where is young Greenhough? He is vanished. Report 
Bfliys he was marked down in your company, and has not 
risen since.” 

“ Report is the civilest jade in the world. According 
to her, all the pigeons disappear in my fields. But, seri- 
ously speaking, Greenhough is off — gone to America — 
over head and ears in debt — debts of honor. Now,” said 
Saville, very slowly, “there’s the difference between the 
gentleman and the parvenu; the gentleman, when all is 


GODOLPIIIN. 


315 


lost, cuts his throat : the parvenu only cuts his creditors. 
I am really very angry with Greenhough that he did not 
destroy himself. A young man under my protection and 
all : so d d ungrateful in him.” 

“ He was not much in your debt— eh ?” said Lord Fal- 
coner, speaking for the first time as the wine began to get 
into his head. 

Saville looked hard at the speaker. 

“ Lord Falconer, a pinch of snuff : there is something 
singularly happy in your question ; so much to the point : 
you have great knowledge of the world — great. He was 
very much in my debt. I introduced the vulgar dog into 
the world, and he owes me all the thousands he had the 
honor to lose in good society !” 

“Do you know, Percy,” continued Saville, “do you 
know, by-the-way, that my poor dear friend Jasmin is 
dead ? died after a hearty game of whist. He had just 
time to cry ‘four by honors/ when death trumped him. 
It was a great shock to me : he was the second best player 
at Graham’s. Those sudden deaths are very awful espe- 

cially with the game in one’s hands.” 

“Yery mortifying, indeed,” seriously said Lord Fal- 
coner, who had just been initiated into whist. 

“ ’Tis droll,” said Saville, “to see how often the last words 
of a man tally with his life ; ’tis like the moral to the fable. 
The best instance I know is in Lord Chesterfield, whose 
fine soul went out in that sublime and inimitable sen- 
tence — ‘ Give Mr. Darrell a chair.’” 


37 « 


GODOLPHIf* 


“ Capital I” cried Lord Falconer. “ Saville, a game at 
ecarte .” 

As the lion in the Tower looked at the lapdog, so in 
all the compassion of contempt looked Saville on Lord 
Falconer. 

“ Infelix puer!” muttered Godolphin, “infelix puer, 
atque impar congressus Achilli!” 

“ With all my heart,” said Saville at last. “ Yet, no — 
we’ve been talking of death — such topics waken a man’s 
conscience. Falconer, I never play for less than ” 

“ Ponies ! — I know it !” cried Falconer, triumphantly. 

“ Ponies — less than chargers ?” 

“ Chargers — what are chargers ?” 

“The whole receipts of an Irish peer, Lord Falconer \ 
and I make it a point never to lose the first game.” 

“ Such men are dangerous,” said Mr. Windsor, with his 
eyes shut. 

“ 0 Night !” cried Godolphin, springing up theatrically, 
“ thou wert made for song, and moonlight, and laughter — 
but woman’s laughter. Fanny, a song — the pretty quaint 
song you sang me, years ago, in praise of a Town love 
and an easy life.” 

Fanny, who had been in the pouts ever since Saville 
had blamed the champagne — for she was very anxious to 
be of bon ton in her own little way — now began to smile 
once more ; and, as the moon played on her arch face, she 
seated herself at the piano, and, glancing at Godolphin, 
sang the following song : 


GODoLPHIN. 


3 7 


LOYE COURTS THE PLEASURES. 


i. 

Believe me, Love was never made 
In deserts to abide; 

Leave Age to take the sober shade, 
And Youth the sunny side. 


II. 

Love dozes by the purling brook. 

No friend to lonely places ; 

Or, if he toy with Strephon’s crook. 

Hie Chloes are the Graces. 

hi. 

Forsake “The Flaunting Town!” Alas I 
Be colls for saints, my own love ! 

The wine of life’s a social glass^ 

Nor may be quaffed alone, love. 


IV. 

Behold the doad and solemn sea, 

To which our beings flow; 

Let waves that soon so dark must be 
Catch every glory now. 


v. 

I would not chain that heart to this. 
To sicken at the rest ; 

The cage we close a prison is, 

The open cage a nest. 


32 * 


378 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER LIT. 

THE CAREER OP CONSTANCE — REAL STATE OF HER FEELINGS TOWARD 
GODOLPHIN — RAPID SUCCESSION OF POLITICAL EVENTS — CANNING’S 

ADMINISTRATION CATHOLIC QUESTION LORD GREY’S SPEECH 

CANNING’S DEATH. 

While in scenes like these, alternated with more re- 
fined and polished dissipation, Godolphin lavished away 
his life, Constance became more and more powerful as one 
of the ornaments of a great political party. Few women 
in England ever mixed more actively in politics than Lady 
Erpingham, or with more remarkable ability. Her friends 
were out of office, it is true; but she saw the time ap- 
proaching rapidly when their opinions must come into 
power. She had begun to love, for itself, the scheming 
of political ambition, and in any country but England she 
would have been a conspirator, and in old times might 
have risen to be a queen : but as it was, she was only a 
proud, discontented woman. She knew, too, that it was 
all she could be — all that her sex allowed her to be — yet 
did she not the less struggle and toil on. The fate of her 
father still haunted her; her promise and his death-bed 
still rose oft and solemnly before her ; the humiliations she 
had known in her early condition — the homage that had 
attended her later career — still cherished in her haughty 
soul indignation at the faction he had execrated, and little 
less of the mighty class which that faction represented, 


GODOLPHIN. 


379 


That system of “ fashion ” she had so mainly contributed 
to strengthen, and which was originally by her intended to 
build up a standard of opinion, independent of mere rank, 
and in defiance of mere wealth, she saw polluted and de- 
based, by the nature of its followers, into a vulgar effrontery, 
which was worse than the more quiet dullness it had at- 
tempted to supplant. Yet still she was comforted by the 
thought that through this system lay the way to more 
wholesome changes. The idols of rank and wealth once 
broken, she believed that a pure and sane worship must 
ultimately be established. Doubtless in the old French 
regime there were many women who thought like her, but 
there were none who acted like her — deliberately, and with 
an end. What an excellent, what a warning picture is 
contained in the entertaining Memoirs of Count Segur 1 
how admirably that agreeable gossip develops the state 
of mind among the nobility of France ! — “ merry censurers 
of the old customs” — “enchanted by the philosophy of 
Voltaire lT — “ridiculing the old system” — “embracing 
liberality as a fashion,” and “gayly treading a soil be- 
decked with flowers, which concealed a precipice from 
their view !”' In England, there are fewer flowers, and the 
precipice will be less fearful. 

A certain disappointment which had attended her mar- 
riage with Godolphin, and the disdainful resentment she 
felt at the pleasure that allured him from her, tended yet 
more to deepen at once her distaste for the habits of a 
frivolous society, and to nerve and concentrate her powers 
of political intrigue. Her mind grew more and more 


380 


GODOLPHIN. 


masculine; her dark eye burned with a sterner fire; vfie 
sweet mouth was less prodigal of its smiles; and that air 
of dignity which she had always possessed, grew harder in 
its character, and became command. 

This change did not tend to draw Godolphin nearer to 
her. He, so susceptible to coldness, so refining, so exact- 
ing, believed fully that she loved him no more — that she 
repented the marriage she had contracted. His pride was 
armed against her ; and he sought more eagerly those 
scenes where all, for the admired, the gallant, the spark- 
ling Godolphin, wore smiles and sunshine. 

There was another matter that rankled in his breast 
with peculiar bitterness. He had wished to raise a large 
sum of money (in the purchase of some celebrated works 
of art), which could only be raised with Lady Erpingham’s 
consent. When he had touched upon the point to her, she 
had not refused, but she had hesitated. She seemed em- 
barrassed, and, he thought, discontented. His delicacy 
took alarm, and he never recurred to the question again ; 
but he was secretly much displeased with her reluctant 
manner on that occasion. Nothing the proud so little 
forget as a coolness conceived upon money matters. In 
this instance, Godolphin afterward discovered that he had 
wronged Constance, and misinterpreted the cause of her 
reluctance. 

Yet, as time flew on for both, both felt a yearning of the 
heart toward each other; and had they been thrown upon 
a desert island — had there been full leisure, full oppor- 
tunity, for a frank, unfettered interchange and confession 


GODOLPHIN. 


381 


of thought — they would have been mutually astonished to 
find themselves still so beloved, and each would have been 
dearer to the other than in their warmest hour of earlier 
attachment. But when once, in a very gay and occupied 
life, a husband and wife have admitted a seeming indiffer- 
ence to creep in between them, the chances are a thousand 
to one against its after-removal. How much more so with 
a wife so proud as Constance, and a husband so refining 
as Godolphin! Fortunately, however, as I said before, 
the temper of each was excellent ; they never quarreled ; 
and the indifference, therefore, lay on the surface, not at 
the depth. They seemed to the world an affectionate 
couple, as couples go ; and their union would have beeD 
classed by Rochefoucauld among those marriages that are 
very happy — il n'y a point de delicieux. 

Meanwhile, as Constance had predicted, the political 
history of the country was marked by a perpetual progress 
toward liberal opinions. Mr. Canning was now in office : 
the Catholic Question was in every one’s mouth. 

There was a brilliant meeting at Erpingham House; 
those who composed it were of the heads of the party : 
but there were divisions among themselves; some were 
secretly for joining Mr. Canning’s administration; some 
had openly done so ; others remained in stubborn and 
jealous opposition. With these last'was the heart of Con- 
stance. 

“Well, well, Lady Erpingham,” said Lord Paul Plymp- 
ton, a young nobleman, who had written a dull history 
and was therefore considered likely to succeed in parlia 


332 


GODOLPHIN. 


mentary life, — “well, I cannot help thinking you are too 
severe upon Canning : he is certainly very liberal in his 
views.” 

“Is there one law he ever caused to pass for the benefit 
of the working classes? No, Lord Paul, his Whiggism is 
for peers, and his Toryism for peasants. With the same 
zeal he advocates the Catholic Question and the Man- 
chester Massacre.” 

“ Yet, surely,” cried Lord Paul, “you make a difference 
between the just liberality that provides for property and 
intelligence, and the dangerous liberality that would slacken 
the reins of an ignorant multitude.” 

“ But,” said Mr. Benson, a very powerful member of the 
Lower House, “ true politicians must conform to circum- 
stances. Canning may not be all we wish, but still he 
ought to be supported. I confess that I shall be generous : 
I care not for office, I care not for power; but Canning is 
surrounded with enemies, who are enemies also to the 
people : for that reason I shall support him.” 

“Bravo, Benson 1” cried Lord Paul. 

“ Bravo, Benson I” echoed two or three notables, who 
had waited an opportunity to declare themselves; “that’s 
what I call handsome.” 

“ Manly 1” 

“ Fair !” 

“Disinterested, by Jove!” 

Here the Duke of Aspindale suddenly entered the room. 
“Ah, Lady Erpingham, you should have been in the Lord’s 
to-night: such a speech! Canning is crushed forever.” 


GODOLPHIN. 


38a 


“ Speech ! from whom ?” 

“ Lord Grey — terrific : it was the vengeance of a life 
concentrated into one hour; it has shaken the Ministry 
fearfully.” 

“Humph !” said Benson, rising; “I shall go to Brooks’s 
and hear more.” 

“And I, too,” said Lord Paul. 

A day or two after, Benson, in presenting a petition, 
alluded in terms of high eulogy to the masterly speech 
made “in another place;” and Lord Paul Plympton said, 
“It was indeed unequaled.” 

That’s what I call handsome. 

Manly ! 

Fair 1 

Disinterested, by Jove I 

And Canning died; his gallant soul left the field of 
politics broken into a thousand petty parties. From the 
time of his death the two great hosts into which the strug- 
gles for power were divided have never recovered their 
former strength. The demarkation that his policy had 
tended to efface was afterward more weakened by his suc- 
cessor the Duke of Wellington; and had it not been for 
the question of Reform that again drew the stragglers on 
either side round one determined banner, it is likely that 
Whig and Tory would, among the many minute sections 
and shades of difference, have lost forever the two broad 
distinguishing colors of their separate factions. 

Mr. Canning died; and now, with redoubled energy, 


384 


GODOLPHIN. 


went on the wheels of political intrigue. The rapid suc- 
cession of short-lived administrations, the leisure of a pro 
longed peace, the pressure of debt, the writings of philos- 
ophers, all, insensibly, yet quickly, excited that popular 
temperament which found its crisis in the Reform Bill. 


CHAPTER LY. 

THE DEATH OF GEORGE IV. — THE POLITICAL SITUATION OF PARTIES, 
AND OF LADY ERP1NGHAM. 

The death of George IY. was the birth of a new 
era. During the later years of that monarch a silent spirit 
had been gathering over the land, which had crept even to 
the very walls of his seclusion. It cannot be denied that 
the various expenses of his reign — no longer consecrated 
by the youthful graces of the prince, no longer disguised 
beneath the military triumphs of the people — had con- 
tributed far more than theoretical speculations to the de- 
sire of political change. The shortest road to liberty lies 
through attenuated pockets 1 

Constance was much at Windsor during the king’s last 
illness, one of the saddest periods that ever passed within 
the walls of a palace. The memorialists of the reign of 
the magnificent Louis XIY. will best convey to the reader 
a notion of the last days of George IY. For, like 
that great king, he was the representation in himself of a 


GODOLPIIIN. 


385 


particular period, and he preserved much of the habits of 
(and much too of the personal interest attached to) his 
youth, through the dreary decline of age. It was melan- 
choly to see one who had played^ not only so exalted, but 
so gallant a part, breathing his life away ; nor was the 
gloom diminished by the many glimpses of a fine original 
nature, which broke forth amid infirmity and disease. 

George IY. died ; his brother succeeded ; and the Eng- 
lish world began to breathe more freely, to look around, 
and to feel that the change, long coming, was come at 
last. The French Revolution, the new parliament, Henry 
Brougham’s return for Yorkshire, Mr. Hume’s return for 
Middlesex, the burst of astonished indignation at the 
Duke of Wellington’s memorable words against reform, 
all betrayed, while they ripened, the signs of the new age. 
The Whig ministry was appointed, appointed amid discon- 
tents in the city, suspicions among the friends of the people, 
amid fires and insurrections in the provinces; — convulsions 
abroad, and turbulence at home. 

The situation of Constance, in these changes, was rather 
curious ; her intimacy with the late king was no recom- 
mendation with the Whig government of his successor. 
Her power, as the power of fashion always must in stormy 
times, had received a shock ; and as she had of late been 
a little divided from the main body of the Whigs, she did 
not share at once in their success, or claim to be one of 
their allies. She remained silent and aloof ; her parties 
were numerous and splendid as ever, but the small plotting 
reunions of political intriguers were suspended. She hinted 

33 z 


386 


GODOLPIIIN. 


mysteriously at the necessity of pausing, to see what reform 
the new ministers would recommend, and what economy 
they would effect. The Tories, especially the more moder- 
ate tribe, began to court her ; the Whigs, flushed with 
their triumph, and too busy to think of women, began to 
neglect. This last circumstance the high Constance felt 
keenly — but with the keenness rather of scorn than indig- 
nation; years had deepened her secret disgust at all aris- 
tocratic ordinances, and looking rather at what the Whigs 
had been than what, pressed by the times, they have be- 
come, she regarded them as only playing with democratic 
counters for aristocratic rewards. She repaid their neglect 
with contempt, and the silent neutralist soon became re- 
garded by them as the secret foe. 

But Constance was sufficiently the woman to feel morti- 
fied and wounded by that which she affected to despise. 
No post at jcourt had been offered to her by her former 
friends; the confidant of George IY. had ceased to be 
the confidant of Lord Grey. Arrived at that doubtful 
time of life when the beauty, although possessing, is no 
longer assured of, her charms, she felt the decay of her 
personal influence as a personal affront ; and thus vexed, 
wounded, alarmed, in her mid-career, Constance was more 
than ever sensible of the peculiar disquietudes that await 
female ambition, and turned with sighs more frequent than 
heretofore to the recollections of that domestic love which 
seemed lost to her forever. 

Mingled with the more outward and visible stream of 
politics there was, as there ever is, a latent tide of more 


GODOLPHIN. 


387 


theoretic and speculative opinions. While the practical 
politicians were playing their momentary parts, schemers 
and levelers were propagating in all quarters doctrines 
which they fondly imagined were addressed to immortal 
ends. And Constance began to turn with some curiosity 
to these charlatans or sages. The bright countess listened 
to their harangues, pondered over their demonstrations, 
and mused over their hopes. But she had lived too much 
on the surface of the actual world, her habits of thought 
were too essentially worldly, to be converted, while she 
was attracted, by doctrines so startling in their ultimate 
conclusions. She turned once more to herself, and waited, 
in a sad and thoughtful stillness, the progress of things — 
convinced only of the vanity of them all. 


CHAPTER LYI. 

THE ROUlS HAS BECOME A VALETUDINARIAN — NEWS — A FORTUNE- 
TELLER. 

Meanwhile the graced Godolphin floated down th* 
sunny tide of his prosperity. He lived chiefly with a knot 
of epicurean dalliers with the time, whom he had selected 
from the wittiest and the easiest of the London world. 
Dictator of theaters — patron of operas — oracle in music — 
mirror of entertainments and equipage — to these condi- 
tions had his natural genius and his once dreaming dispo- 


388 


GODOLPHIN. 


sitions been bowed at last ! A round of dissipation, how- 
ever, left him no time for reflection; and he believed 
(perhaps he was not altogether wrong) that the best way 
to preserve the happy equilibrium of the heart is to blunt 
its susceptibilities. As the most uneven shapes, when 
whirled into rapid and ceaseless motion, will appear a 
perfect circle, so, once impelled in a career that admits no 
pause, our life loses its uneven angles, and glides on in 
smooth and rounded celerity, with false aspects more sym- 
metrical than the truth. 

One day Godolphin visited Saville ; who now, old, worn, 
and fast waning to the grave, cropped the few flowers on 
the margin, and jested, but with sourness, on his own decay. 
He found the actress (who had also come to visit the Man 
of Pleasure) sitting by the window, and rattling away with 
her usual vivacity, while she divided her attention with the 
labors of knitting a purse. 

“Heaven only knows,” said Saville, “what all these 
times will produce. I lose my head in the dizzy quick- 
ness of events. Panny, hand me my snuff-box. Well, I 
fancy my last hour is not far distant; but I hope, at least, 
I shall die a gentleman. I have a great dislike to the 
thought of being revolutionized into a roturier. That’s 
the only kind of revolution I have any notion about. 
What do you say to all this, Godolphin ? Every one else 
is turning politician; young Sunderland whirls his cab 
down to the House at four o’clock every day — dines at Bel- 
lamy’s on cold beef; and talks of nothing but that d d 

good speech of Sir Robert’s! Revolution ! faith, the revo- 


GODOLPHIN. 


389 


lutiou is come already. Revolutions only change the 
aspect of society ; is it not changed enough within the 
last six months ? Bah I I suppose you are bit by the 
mania ?” 

“ Not I ! while I live I will abjure the vulgar toil of am- 
bition. Let others rule or ruin the state ; — like the Due 
de Lauzun, while the guillotine is preparing, I will think 
only of my oysters and my champagne. ” 

“A noble creed !” said Fanny, smiling : “let the world 
go to wreck, and bring me my biscuit I That’s Godolphin’s 
motto.” 

“ It is life’s motto.” 

“Yes — a gentleman’s life.” 

“ Pish ! Fanny ; no satire from you : you, who are not 
(properly speaking) even a tragic actress ! But there is 
something about your profession sublimely picturesque in 
the midst of these noisy brawls. The storms of nations 
shake not the stage ; you are wrapt in another life ; the 
atmosphere of poetry girds you. You are like the fairies 
who lived among men, visible only at night, and playing 
their fantastic tricks amid the surrounding passions — the 
sorrow, the crime, the avarice, the love, the wrath, the 
luxury, the famine, that belong to the grosser dwellers of 
the earth. You are to be envied, Fanny.” 

“ Not so ; I am growing old.” 

“ Old !” cried Saville. ‘“Ah, talk not of it I TTgh ! — 
Ugh! Curse this cough! But hang politics; it always 
brings disagreeable reflections. Glad, my old pupil,— glad 
am I to see that you still retain your auemst contemot for- 
38 * 


390 


GODOLPHIN. 


these foolish stragglers — insects splashing and panting in 
the vast stream of events, which they scarcely stir, and in 
which they scarcely drop before they are drowned ” 

“ Or the fishes, their passions, devour them,” said Go- 
dolphin. 

“News!” cried Saville ; “let us have real news; cut all 
the politics out of the ‘ Times,’ Fanny, with your scissors, 
and then read me the rest.” 

Fanny obeyed. 

“ ‘Fire in Marylebone !’ ” 

“ That’s not news ! — skip that.” 

“ ‘ Letter from Radical. 1 ” 

“Stuff! What else?” 

“ ‘Emigration : — No fewer than sixty-eight ’ ” 

“ Hold ! for Mercy’s sake ! What do I, just going out 
of the world, care for people only going out of the coun- 
try ? Here, child, give the paper to Godolphin ; he knows 
exactly what interests a man of sense.” 

“.‘Sale of Lord Lysart’s wines ’” 

“ Capital !” cried Saville : “ that's news — that's interest- 
ing 1” 

Fanny’s pretty hands returned to their knitting. When 
the wines had been discussed, the following paragraph was 
chanced upon: 

“ There is a foolish story going the round of the papers 
about Lord Grey and his vision ; — the vision is only in the 
silly heads of the inventors of the story, and the ghost is, 
we suppose, the apparition of Old Sarum. By-the-way, 
there is a celebrated fortune-teller, or prophetess, now in 


GODOLPHIN. 


391 


London, making much noise. We conclude the discom- 
fited Tories will next publish her oracular discourses. She 
is just arrived in time to predict the passing of the Re- 
form Bill, without any fear of being proved an impostor.” 

“Ah, by-the-by,” said Saville, “I hear wonders of this 
sorceress. She dreams and divines with the most singular 
accuracy; and all the old women of both sexes flock to 
her in hackney-coaches, making fools of themselves to- 
day in order to be wise to-morrow. Have you seen her, 
Fanny ?” 

“ Yes,” replied the actress, very gravely ; “ and, in sober 
earnest, she has startled me. Her countenance is so strik- 
ing, her eyes so wild, and in her conversation there is so 
much enthusiasm, that she carries you away in spite of 
yourself. Do you believe in astrology, Percy ?” 

“ X almost did once,” said Godolphin, with a half sigh ; 
“ but does this female seer profess to choose astrology in 
preference to cards ? The last is the more convenient way 
of tricking the public.” 

“ Oh, but this is no vulgar fortune-teller, I assure you,” 
cried Fanny, quite eagerly: “she dwells much on mag- 
netism ; insists on the effect of your own imagination ; 
discards all outward quackeries ; and, in short, has either 
discovered a new way of learning the future, or revived 
some forgotten trick of deluding the public. Come and 
see her, some day, Godolphin.” 

“No, I don’t like that kind of imposture,” said Godol- 
phin, quickly ; and turning away, he sank into a silent and 
gloomy reverie. 


392 


GODOLPHIN. 


CHAPTER L VII. 


SUPERSTITION — ITS WONDERFUL EFFECTS. 


It was perfectly true that there had appeared in Lon* 
don a person of the female sex who, during the last few 
years, had been much noted on the Continent for the sin- 
gular boldness with which she had promulgated the wildest 
doctrines, and the supposed felicity which had attended 
her vaticinations. She professed belief in all the dogmas 
that preceded the dawn of modern philosophy ; and a 
strange, vivid, yet gloomy eloquence that pervaded her 
language gave effect to theories which, while incompre- 
hensible to the many, were alluring to the few. None 
knew her native country, although she was believed to 
come from the North of Europe. Her way of life was 
lonely, her habits eccentric; she sought no companion- 
ship; she was beautiful, but not of this earth’s beauty; 
men admired, but courted not ; she, at least, lived apart 
from the reach of human passions. In fact, the strange 
Liehbur, for such was the name the prophetess was known 
by (and she assumed before it the French title of Madame), 
was not an impostor, but a fanatic : the chords of the brain 
were touched, and the sound they gave back was erring 
and imperfect. She was mad, but with a certain method 
; n her madness; a cold and preternatural and fearful 


GODOLPHIN. 


393 


spirit abode within her, and spoke from her lips ; its voice 
froze herself, and she was more awed by her own oracles 
than her listeners themselves. 

In Vienna and in Paris her renown was great, and even 
terrible : the greatest men in those capitals had consulted 
her, and spoke of her decrees with a certain reverence ; 
her insanity thrilled them, and they mistook the cause. 
Besides, on the main, she was right in the principle she 
addressed: she worked on the imagination, and the im- 
agination afterward fulfilled what she predicted. Every 
one knows what dark things may be done by our own 
fantastic persuasions ; belief insures the miracles it credits. 
Men dream they shall die within a certain hour; the hour 
comes, and the dream is realized. The most potent wizard- 
ries are less potent than fancy itself. Macbeth was a mur- 
derer, not because the witches predicted, but because their 
prediction aroused the thought of murder. And this prin- 
ciple of action the prophetess knew well : she appealed to 
that attribute common to us all, the foolish and the wise, 
and on that fruitful ground she sowed her sooth-sayings. 

In London there are always persons to run after any- 
thing new, and Madame Liehbur became at once the rage. 
I myself have seen a minister hurrying from her door with 
his cloak about his face; and one of the coldest of living 
sages confesses that she told him what he believes, by mere 
human means, she could not have discovered. Delusion 
all ! But wnat age is free from it ? The race of the nine- 
teenth century boast their lights, but run as madly after 
any folly as their fathers in the eighth. What are the 
33 * 


394 


GODOLPHIN. 


prophecies of St. Simon but a species of sorcery? Why 
believe the external more than the inner miracle ? 

****** 

There were but a few persons present at Lady Erping- 
ham’s, and when Radclyflfe entered, Madame Liehbur was 
?he theme of the general conversation. So many anec- 
dotes were told, so much that was false was mingled with 
so much that seemed true, that Lady Erpingham’s curiosity 
was excited, and she resolved to seek the modern Cassan- 
dra with the first opportunity. Godolphin sat apart from 
the talkers, playing a quiet game at &carte. Constance’s 
eyes stole ever and anon to his countenance ; and when 
she turned at length away with a sigh, she saw that Rad- 
clyffe’s deep and inscrutable gaze was bent upon her, and 
the proud countess blushed, although she scarce knew why 


CHAPTER LYIII. 

TIIE EMPIRE OF TIME AND OF LOVE — THE PROUD CONSTANCE 
GROWN WEAK AND HUMBLE — AN ORDEAL. 

About this time the fine constitution of Lady Erping 
ham began to feel the effects of that life which, at once 
idle and busy, is the most exhausting of all. She suffered 
under no absolute illness ; she was free from actual pain ; 
but a fever crept over her at night, and a languid debility 
succeeded it the next day. She was melancholy and de- 
jected; tears came into her eyes without a cause; a oud- 


GODOLPIU N. 


395 


den noise made her tremble ; her nerves were shaken , — 
terrible disease, which marks a new epoch in life, which is 
the first token that our youth is about to leave us 1 

It is in sickness that we feel our true reliance on others, 
especially if it is of that vague and not dangerous char- 
acter when those around us are not ashamed or roused 4 
into attendance ; when the care, and the soothing, and the 
vigilance, are the result of that sympathy which true and 
deep love only feels. This thought broke upon Constance 
as she sat alone one morning in that mood when books 
cannot amuse, nor music lull, nor luxury soothe — the mood 
of au aching memory and a spiritless frame. Above her, 
and over the mantle-piece of her favorite room, hung that 
picture of her father which I have before described ; it had 
been long since removed from Wendover Castle to Lon- 
don, for Constance wished it to be frequently in her sight. 
“Alas !” thought she, gazing upon the proud and animated 
brow that bent down upon her; “alas! though in a dif- 
ferent sphere, thy lot, my father, has been mine ; — toil un- 
repaid, affection slighted, sacrifices forgotten a harder 
lot in part ; for thou hadst, at least, in thy stirring and 
magnificent career, continued excitement and perpetual 
triumph. But I, a woman, shut out by my sex from con- 
test, from victory, am left only the thankless task to devise 
the rewards which others are to enjoy ; the petty plot, the, 
poor intrigue, the toil without the honor, the humiliation 
without the revenge ; — yet have I worked in thy cause, my 
father, and thou— thou, couldst thou see my heart, wouldst 
pity and approve me.” 


396 


GODOLPHIN. 


As Constance turned away her eyes, they fell on the 
opposite mirror, which reflected her still lofty but dimmed 
and faded beauty ; the worn cheek, the dejected eye, those 
lines and hollows which tell the progress of years ! There 
are certain moments when the time we have been forget- 
ting makes its march suddenly apparent to our own eyes; 
when the change we have hitherto marked not stares upon 
us rude and abrupt ; we almost fancy those lines, those 
wrinkles, planted in a single hour, so unperceived have 
they been before. And such a moment was this to the 
beautiful Constance : she started at her own likeness, and 
turned involuntary from the unflattering mirror. Beside 
it, on a table, lay a locket, given her by Godolphin just 
before they married, and containing his hair; it was a 
simple trifle, and the simplicity seemed yet more striking 
amid the costly and modern jewels that were scattered 
round it. As she looked on it, her heart, all woman still, 
flew back to the day on which, whispering eternal love, he 
hung it round her neck. “Ah, happy days ! would that 
they could return 1” sighed the desolate schemer; and she 
took the locket, kissed it, and, softened by all the number- 
less recollections of the past, wept silently over it. “And 
yet,” she said, after a pause, and wiping away her tears, 
“ and yet this weakness is unworthy of me. Lone, sad, 
ill, broken in frame and spirits as I am, he comes not near 
me ; I am nothing to him, nothing to any one in the wide 
world. My heart, my heart, reconcile thyself to thy fate ! 
— what thou hast been from my cradle, that shalt thou be 
to my grave. I have not even the tenderness of a child 
to look to — the future is all blank ,v 


GODOLPIIIN. 


397 


Constance was yet half yielding to, half Struggling 
with, these thoughts, when Stainforth Radclyffe (to whom 
she was never denied) was suddenly announced. Time, 
which, sooner or later, repays perseverance, although in a 
deceitful coin, had brought to Radclyffe a solid earnest of 
future honors. His name had risen high in the science of 
his country ; it was equally honored by the many and the 
few; he had become a marked man, one of whom all pre- 
dicted a bright hereafter. He had not yet, it is true, 
entered parliament, — usually the great arena in which 
English reputations are won, — but it was simply because 
he had refused to enter it under the auspices of any 
patron; and his political knowledge, his depth of thought, 
and his stern, hard, ambitious mind were not the less ap- 
preciated and acknowledged. Between him and Constance 
friendship had continued to strengthen, and the more so as 
their political sentiments were in a great measure the same, 
although originating in different causes — hers from passion, 
his from reflection. 

Hastily Constance turned aside her face, and brushed 
away her tears, as Radclyffe approached ; and then, seem- 
ing to busy herself among some papers that lay scattered 
on her escritoire, and gave her an excuse for concealing in 
part her countenance, she said, with a constrained cheer- 
fulness, “I am happy you are come to relieve my ennui; 

I have been looking over letters, written so many years 
ago that I have been forced to remember how soon I shall 
cease to be young; no pleasant reflection for any one, 
much less a woman.” 


34 


393 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ I amita loss for a compliment in return, as you may 
suppose,” answered Radclyffe; “but Lady Erpingliam de- 
serves a penance for even hinting at the possibility of 
being ever less charming than she is; so I shall hold my 
tongue.” 

“Alas!” said Constance, gravely, “how little, save the 
mere triumphs of youth and beauty, is left to our sex 1 
How much, nay, how entirely, in all other and loftier ob- 
jects, is our ambition walled in and fettered ! The human 
mind must have its aim, its aspiring ; how can your sex 
blame us, then, for being frivolous, when no aim, no as- 
piring, save those of frivolity, are granted us by society ?” 

“And is love frivolous ?” said Radclyffe ; “ is the Em- 
pire of the Heart nothing ?” 

“ Yes,” exclaimed Constance, with energy ; “ for the 
empire never lasts. We are slaves to the empire we would 
found ; we wish to be loved, but we only succeed in loving 
too well ourselves. We lay up our all — our thoughts, 
hopes, emotions — all the treasure of our hearts — in one 
spot ; and when we would retire from the deceits and cares 
of life, we find the sanctuary walled against us — we love, 
and are loved no longer 1” 

Constance had turned round with the earnestness of tne 
feeling she expressed ; and her eyes, still wet with tears, 
her flushed cheek, her quivering lip, struck to Radclyffe’s 
heart more than her words. He rose involuntarily ; his 
own agitation was marked; he moved several steps toward 
Constance, and then checked the impulse, and muttered 
indistinctly to himself. 


GODOLPHIN. 


399 


“No,” said Constance, mournfully, and scarcely heeding 
him — “ it is in vain for us to be ambitious. We only de- 
ceive ourselves ; we are not stern and harsh enough for 
the passion. Touch our affections, and we are recalled at 
once to the sense of our weakness ; and I — I — would to God 
that I were a humble peasant girl, and not— not what I 
am I” 

So saying, the lofty Constance sank down, overpowered 
with the bitterness of her feelings, and covered her face 
with her hands. Was Radclyffe a man that he could see 
this unmoved ? — that he could hear those beautiful lips 
breathe complaints for the want of love, and not acknowl- 
edge the love that burned at his own heart ? Long, secretly, 
resolutely, had he struggled against the passion for Con- 
stance, which his frequent intercourse with her had fed, 
and which his consciousness, that in her was the only 
parallel to himself that he had ever met with in her sex, 
had first led him to form ; and now lone, neglected, sad, 
this haughty woman wept over her unloved lot in his 
presence, and still he was not at her feet I He spoke not, 
moved not, but his breath heaved thick, and his face was 
as pale as death. He conquered himself. All within Rad- 
clyflfe obeyed the idol he had worshiped, even before Con- 
stance ; all within him, if ardent and fiery, was also high 
and generous. The acuteness of his reason permitted him 
no self-sophistries ; and he would have laid his head on the 
block rather than breathe a word of that love, which he 
knew, from the moment it was confessed, would become 
unworthy of Constance and himself. 


400 


GODOLPH1N. 


There was a pause. Lady Erpingham, ashamed, con* 
founded at her own weakness, recovered herself slowly and 
in silence. Radclyffe at length spoke: and his voice, at 
first trembling and indistinct, grew, as he proceeded, clear 
and earnest. 

“ Never,” said he, “ shall I forget the confidence your 
emotions have testified in my — my friendship ; I am about 
to deserve it. Do not, my dear friend (let me so call you), 
do not forget, that life is too short for misunderstandings 
in which happiness is concerned. You believe that — that 
Godolphin does not repay the affection yon have borne 
him : do not be angry, dear Lady Erpingham ; I feel it 
indelicate in me to approach that subject, but my regard 
for you emboldens me. I know Godolphin’s heart; he 
may seem light, neglectful, but he loves you as deeply as 
ever; he loves you entirely.” 

Constance, humbled as she was, listened in breathless 
silence ; her cheek burned with blushes, and those blushes 
were at once to Radclyffe a torture and a reward. 

“At this moment,” continued he, with constrained calm- 
ness, “at this moment he fancies in you that very coldness 
you lament in him. Pardon me, Lady Erpingham ; but 
Godolphin’s nature is wayward, mysterious, and exacting. 
Have you consulted, have you studied it sufficiently ? 
Note it well, soothe it; and if his love can repay you, 
you will be repaid. God bless you, dearest Lady Erping- 
ham.” 

In a moment more, Radclyffe had left the apartment. 


godolphin. 


401 


CHAPTER LIX. 

CONSTANCE MAKES A DISCOVERY THAT TOUCHES AND ENLIGHTENS 
HER AS TO GODOLPHIN’S NATURE — AN EVENT, ALTHOUGH IN PRI- 
VATE LIFE, NOT WITHOUT ITS INTEREST. 

If Constance most bitterly reproached herself, or rather 
her slackened nerves, her breaking health, that she had be- 
fore another — that other, too, not of her own sex — betrayed 
her dependence upon even her husband’s heart for happi 
ness; if her conscience instantly took alarm at the error 
(and it was indeed a grave one) which had revealed to any 
man her domestic griefs ; yet, on the other hand, she could 
not control the wild thrill of delight with which she re- 
called those words that had so solemnly as&ured her she 
was still beloved by Godolphin. She had a firm respect 
in Radclyffe’s penetration and his sincerity, and knew that 
he was one neither to deceive her nor be deceived himself. 
His advice, too, came home to her. Had she, indeed, with 
sufficient address, sufficient softness, insinuated herself into 
Godolphin’s nature ? Neglected herself, had she not neg- 
lected in return ? She asked herself this question, and 
was never weary of examining her past conduct. That 
Radclyffe, the austere and chilling Radclyffe, entertained 
for her any feeling warmer than friendship, she never for an 
instant suspected; that suspicion alone would have driven 
him from her presence forever. And although there had 
34* 2a 


402 


GODOLPHIN. 


been a time, in his bright and exulting youth, when Rad- 
clyffe had not been without those arts which win, in the 
opposite sex, affection from aversion itself, those arts 
doubled, ay, a hundredfold, in their fascination, would 
not have availed him with the pure but disappointed Con- 
stance, even had a sense of right and wrong very different 
from the standard he now acknowledged permitted him to 
exert them. So that his was rather the sacrifice of im- 
pulse, than of any triumph that impulse could afterward 
have gained him. 

Many, and soft and sweet were now the recollections of 
Constance. Her heart flew back to her early love among 
the shades of Wendover; to the first confession of the 
fair enthusiastic boy, when he offered at her shrine a mind, 
a genius, a heart capable of fruits which the indolence of 
after-life, and the lethargy of disappointed hope, had 
blighted before their time. 

If he was now so deaf to what she considered the nobler, 
because more stirring, excitements of life, was she not in 
some measure answerable for the snpineness ? Had there 
not been a day in which he had vowed to toil, to labor, to 
sacrifice the very character of his mind, for a union with 
her? Was she, after all, was she right to adhere so rigidly 
to her father’s dying words, and to that vow afterward 
confirmed by her own pride and bitterness of soul ? She 
looked to her father’s portrait for an answer; and that 
daring and eloquent face seemed, for the first time, cold 
and unanswering to her appeal. 

In such meditations the hours passed, and midnight 


GO DOLPHIN. 


103 


came on without Constance having quitted her apartment. 
She now summoned her woman, and inquired if Godolphin 
was at home. He had come in about an hour since, and, 
complaining of fatigue, had retired to rest. Constance 
again dismissed her maid, and stole to his apartment. He 
was already asleep ; his cheek rested on his arm, and his 
fair hair fell wildly over a brow that now worked under 
the influence of his dreams. Constance put the light softly 
down, and seating herself beside him, watched over asleep 
which, if it had come suddenly on him, was not the less 
unquiet and disturbed. At length he muttered, “Yes, 
Lucilla, yes; I tell you, you are avenged. I have not for- 
gotten you 1 I have not forgotten that I betrayed, de- 
serted you ! but it was my fault ? No, no ! Yet I have 
not the less sought to forget it. These poor excesses, — 
these chilling gayeties, — were they not incurred for you ? — 
and now you come — you— ah, no ! — spare me !” 

Shocked and startled, Constance drew back. Here was 
a new key to Godolphin’s present life, his dissipation, his 
thirst for pleasure. Had he indeed sought to lull the 
stings of conscience? And she, instead of soothing, of 
reconciling him to the past, had she left him alone to 
struggle with bitter and unresting thoughts, and to con- 
trast the devotion of the one lost with the indifference of 
the one gained ? She crept back to her own chamber, to 
commune with her heart and be still. 

“ My dear Percy,” said she, the next day, when he care- 
lessly sauntered into her boudoir before he rode out, “ I 
hav' a favor to ask of you.” 


404 


GODOLPIIIN. 


‘‘Who ever denied a favor to Lady Erpingham ?” 

“Not you, certainly; but my favor is a great one.” 

“ It is granted.” 

“Let us pass the summer in * * * shire.” 

Godolphin’s brow grew clouded. 

“At Wendover Castle ?” said he, after a pause. 

“We have "never been there since our marriage,” said 
Constance, evasively. 

“ Humph ! — as you will.” 

“ It was the place,” said Constance, “ where you, Percy, 
first told me you loved !” 

The tone of his wife’s voice struck on the right chord in 
Godolphin’s breast; he looked up, and saw her eyes full of 
tears, and fixed upon him. 

“Why, Constance,” said he, much affected, “who would 
have thought that you still cherished that remembrance !” 

“Ah ! when shall I forget ?” said Constance ; 11 then you 
loved me !” 

“And was rejected.” 

“Hush ! but I believe now that I was wrong.” 

“No, Constance; you were wrong, for your own hap- 
piness, that the rejection was not renewed.” 

“ Percy I” 

“ Constance I” and in the accent of that last word there 
was something that encouraged Constance, and she threw 
herself into Godolphin’s arms, and murmured : 

“ If I have offended, forgive me ; let us be to each other 
what we once were.” 

Words like these from the lips of one in whom such 


GODOLPHIN. 


405 


tender supplication, such feminine yearnings, were not 
common, subdued Godolphin at once. He folded her in 
his arms, and kissing her passionately, whispered, “ Be 
always thus, Constance, and you will be more to me than 
ever.” 


CHAPTER LX. 

THE REFORM BILL — A VERY SHORT CHAPTER. 

This reconciliation was not so short-lived as matters 
of the kind frequently are. There is a Chinese proverb 
which says: “How near are two hearts when there is no 
deceit between them I’ 7 And the misunderstanding of their 
mutual sentiments being removed, their affection became 
at once visible to each other. And Constance reproaching 
herself for her former pride, mingled in her manner to her 
husband a gentle, even a humble sweetness, which, being 
exactly that which he had most desired in her, was what 
most attracted him. 

At this time, Lord John Russell brought forward the 
Bill of Parliamentary Reform. Lady Erpingham was in 
the lantern of the House of Commons on that memorable 
night; like every one else, her feelings at first were all 
absorbed in surprise. She went home ; she hastened to 
Godolphin’s library. Leaning his head on his hand, that 
strange person, in the midst of events that stirred the 
destinies of Europe, was absorbed in the old subtleties of 


406 


GODOLPHIN. 


Spinosa. In the frank confidence of revived love, she put 
her hand upon his shoulder, and told him rapidly that 
news which was then on its way to terrify or delight the 
whole of England. 

“ Will this charm you, dear Constance ?” said he, kindly ; 
' is it a blow to the party you hate, and I sympathize with 
— or ” 

“ My father 1” interrupted Constance, passionately ; 
“ would to Heaven he had seen this day 1 It was this 
system, the patron and the nominee system, that crushed, 
and debased, and killed him. And now, I shall see that 
system destroyed 1” 

“ So, then, my Constance will go over to the Whigs in 
earnest ?” 

“ Yes, because I shall meet there truth and the people V 9 

Godolphin laughed gently at the French exaggeration 
of the saying, and Constance forgave him. 

The fine ladies of London were a little divided as to the 
merits of the “ Bill Constance was the first that declared 
in its favor. She was an important ally — as important, at 
least, as a woman can be. A bright spirit-reigned in her 
eye ; her step grew more elastic ; her voice more glad. 
This was the happiest time of her life — she was happy in 
the renewal of her love, happy in the approaching triumph 
of her hate. 


GODOLPHIN. 


40’i 


CHAPTER L XL 

PHE SOLILOQUY OF THE SOOTHSAYER AN EPISODICAL MYSTERY, 

INTRODUCED AS A TYPE OF THE MANY THINGS IN LIFE THAT 

ARE NEVER ACCOUNTED FOR GRATUITOUS DEVIATIONS FROM 

OUR COMMON CAREER. 

In Leicester Square there is a dim old house, which I 
have but this instant visited, in order to bring back more 
vividly to my recollection the wild and unhappy being 
who, for some short time, inhabited its old-fashioned and 
gloomy chambers. 

In that house, at the time I now speak of, lodged the 
mysterious Liehbur, It was late at noon, and she sat 
alone in her apartment, which was darkened so as to ex- 
clude the broad and peering sun. There was no trick, 
nor sign of the fallacious art she professed, visible in the 
large and melancholy room. One or two books in the 
German language lay on the table beside which she sat: 
but they were of the recent poetry, and not of the departed 
dogmas, of the genius of that tongue. The enthusiast 
was alone ; and, with her hand supporting her chin, and 
her eyes fixed on vacancy, she seemed feeding in silence 
the thoughts that flitted to and fro athwart a brain which 
had for years lost its certain guide; a deserted mansion, 
whence the lord had departed, and where spirits not of 
this common life had taken up their haunted and desolate 
abode. And never was there a countenance better suited 


408 


GODOLPHIN. 


to the character which this singular woman had assumed 
Kich, thick auburn hair was parted loosely over a brow in 
which the large and full temples would have betrayed to a 
phrenologist the great preponderance which the dreaming 
and the imaginative bore over the sterner faculties. Her 
eyes were deep, intense, but of the bright and wandering 
glitter which is so powerful in its effect on the beholder, 
because it betokens that thought which is not of this daily 
world, and inspires that fear, that sadness, that awe, which 
few have looked on the face of the insane and not expe- 
rienced. Her features were still noble, and of the fair 
Greek symmetry of the painter’s Sibyl; but the cheeks 
were worn and hollow, and one bright spot alone broke 
their marble paleness ; her lips were, however, full, and yet 
red, and, by their uncertain and varying play, gave fre- 
quent glimpses of teeth lustrously white; which, while 
completing the beauty of her face, aided — with somewhat 
of a fearful effect — the burning light of her strange eyes, 
and the vague, mystic expression of her abrupt and un- 
joyous smile. You might see, when her features were, as 
now, in a momentary repose, that her health was broken, 
and that she was not long sentenced to wander over that 
world where the soul had already ceased to find its home ; 
but the instant she spoke, her color deepened, and the 
brilliant and rapid alternations of her countenance de- 
ceived the eye, and concealed the ravages of the worm 
that preyed within. 

“Yes.” said she, at last breaking silence, and soliloquizing 
in the English tongue, but with somewhat of a foreign 


GODOLPH.IN. 


409 


accent; “yes, I am in his city; within a few paces of his 
home ; I have seen him, I have heard him. Night after 
night — in rain, and in the teeth of the biting winds, — I 
have wandered round his home. Ay ! and I could have 
raised my voice, and shrieked a warning and a prophecy, 
that should have startled him from his sleep as the trum- 
pet of the last angel ! but I hushed the sound within my 
soul, and covered the vision with a thick silence. Oh, 
God ! what have I seen, and felt, and known, since he last 
saw me ! But we shall meet again ; and ere the year has 
rolled round, I shall feel the touch of his lips and die ! 
Die! what calmness, what luxury in the word! The 
fiery burden of this dread knowledge I have heaped upon 
me, shuffled off ; memory no more ; the past, the present, 
the future exorcised ; and a long sleep, with bright dreams 
of a lulling sky, and a silver voice, and his presence l” 

The door opened, and a black girl of about ten years 
old, in the costume of her Moorish tribe, announced the 
arrival of a new visitor. The countenance of Madame 
Liehbur changed at once into an expression of cold and 
settled calmness ; she ordered the visitor to be admitted ; 
and presently, Stainforth Radclyffe entered the room. 

* * * * * * 
****** 
****** 

“Thou mistakest me and my lore,” said the diviner; “I 
meddle not with the tricks and schemes of the worldly; I 
show the truth, not garble it.” 

“Pshaw!” said Radclyffe, impatiently; “this jargon 
35 


410 


GODOLPHIN. 


cannot deceive me. You exhibit your skill for money; 

I ask one exertion of it, and desire you to name v your re- 
ward. Let us talk after the fashion of this world, and 
leave that of the other to our dupes.” 

“Yet, thou hast known grief too,” said the diviner, 
musingly, “and those who have sorrowed ought to judge 
more gently of each other. Wilt thou try my art on thy- 
self, ere thou askest it for others ?” 

“Ay, if you could restore the dead to my dreams.” 

“I can 1” replied the soothsayer, sternly. 

Radclyffe laughed bitterly. “Away with this talk to 
me ; or, if you would convince me, raise at once the specter 
I desire to see 1” 

“And dost thou think, vain man,” replied Liehbur, 
haughtily, “that I pretend to the power thou speakest of? 
Yes ; but not as the impostors of old (dull and gross, ap- 
pealing to outward spells, and spells wrought by them- 
selves alone) affected to do. I can bring the dead before 
thee, but thou thyself must act upon thyself.” 

“Mummery 1 What would you drive at ?” 

“Wilt thou fast three days, and for three nights abstain 
from sleep, and then visit me once again ?” 

“No, fair deluder; such a preliminary is too much to 
ask of a Neophyte. Three days without food, and three 
nights without sleep 1 Why you would have to raise my- 
self from the dead 1” 

“And canst thou,” said the diviner, with great dignity, 
“ canst thou hope that thou wouldst be worthy of a revela- 
tion from a higher world — that for thee the keys of the 


GODOLPHIN 


411 


Grave should unlock their awful treasure, and the ‘Dead 
return to life, when thou scruplest to mortify thy flesh 
and loosen the earthly bonds that cumber and chain the 
spirit? I tell thee, that only as the soul detaches itself 
from the frame, can its inner and purer sense awaken, and 
the full consciousness of the invisible and divine things 
that surround it descend upon its powers.” 

“And what,” said Radclyffe, startled more by the coun- 
tenance and voice than the words themselves of the sooth- 
sayer, “what would you then do, supposing that I perform 
this penance?” 

“Awaken to their utmost sense, even to pain and tor- 
ture, the naked nerves of that Great Power thou callest 
the imagination ; that Power which presides over dreams 
and visions, which kindles song, and lives in the Heart of 
Melodies; which inspired the Magian of the East and the 
Pythian voices — and, in the storms and thunder of savage 
lands, originated the notion of a God and the seeds of 
human worship ; that vast presiding Power which, to the 
things of mind, is what the Deity is to the Universe itself 
— the Creator of all. I would awaken, I say, that Power 
from its customary sleep, where, buried in the heart, it folds 
its wings, and lives but by fits and starts, unquiet, but un- 
aroused; and by that Power thou wouldst see, and feel, 
and know, and through it only thou wouldst exist. So 
that it would be with thee, as if the body were not : as if 
thou wert already all-spiritual, all-living. So thou wouldst 
learn in life that which may be open to thee after death ; 
and so, soul might now, as hereafter, converse with soul, 


412 


GODOLPHIN. 


and revoke the Past, and sail prescient down the dark 
tides of the Future. A brief and fleeting privilege, but 
dearly purchased : be wise, and disbelieve in it; be happy, 
and reject it !” 

Radclyffe was impressed, despite himself, by the solemn 
novelty of this language, and the deep mournfulness with 
which the soothsayer’s last sentence died away. 

“And how,” said he, after a pause, “ how, and by what 
arts, would you so awaken the imaginative faculty ?” 

“Ask not until the time comes for the trial,” answered 
Liehbur. 

“ But can you awaken it in all ? — the dull, the unideal, 
as in the musing and exalted ?” 

“ No I but the dull and unideal will not go through the 
necessary ordeal. Few besides those for whom Fate casts 
her great parts in life’s drama, ever come to that point 
when I can teach them the future.” 

“Do you mean that your chief votaries are among the 
great? Pardon me, I should have thought the most 
superstitious are to be found among the most ignorant and 
lowly.” 

“Yes; but they consult only what imposes on their 
credulity, without demanding sterx- and severe sacrifice of 
time and enjoyment, as I do. The daring, the resolute, 
the scheming, with their souls intent upon great objects 
and high dreams — those are the men who despise the 
charms of the moment, who are covetous of piercing the 
far future, who know how much of their hitherward career 
has been brightened, not by genius or nature, but some 


GODOLPHIN. 


413 


strange confluence of events, some mysterious agency of 
fate. The great are always fortunate, and therefore mostly 
seekers into the decrees of fortune.” 

So great is the influence which enthusiasm, right or 
wrong, always exercises over us, that even the hard and 
acute Radclyffe — who had entered the room with the most 
profound contempt for the pretensions of the soothsayer, 
and partly from a wish to find materials for ridiculing a 
folly of the day, partly, it may be, from the desire to ex- 
amine which belonged to his nature — began to consider 
in his own mind whether he should yield to his curiosity, 
now strongly excited, and pledge himself to the prelimi- 
nary penance the diviner had ordained. 

The soothsayer continued : 

“ The stars, and the clime, and the changing moon have 
power over us — why not ? Do they not have influence 
over the rest of nature ? But we can only unravel their 
more august and hidden secrets, by giving full wing to the 
creative spirit which first taught us their elementary 
nature, and which, When released from earth, will have full 
range to wander over their brilliant fields. Know, in one 
word, the Imagination and the Soul are one , one indivis- 
ible and the same ; on that truth rests all my lore.” 

“And if I followed your precepts, what other prelimina- 
ries would you enjoin ?” 

«* Not until thou engagest to perform them, will I tell 
thee more.” 

“ I engage 1” 

“And swear ?” 


35 * 


414 


GODOLPHIN. 


“I swear !” 

The soothsayer rose — and- 


* * 

* * 

* * 

\ 

* * 

* * 

* * 


CHAPTER L X 1 1. 


IN WHICH THE COMMON LIFE GLIDES INTO THE STRANGE — EQUALLY 
TRUE, BUT THE TRUTH NOT EQUALLY ACKNOWLEDGED. 

It was on the night of this interview that Constance, 
coming into Godolphin’s room, found him leaning against 
the wall, pale, and agitated, and almost insensible. 
“ Percy — Percy, you are ill !” she exclaimed, and wound 
her arms round his neck. He looked at her long and wist- 
fully, breathing hard all the time, until at length he seemed 
slowly to recover his self-possession, and seating himself, 
motioned Constance to do the same. After a pause, he 
said, clasping her hand : 

“ Listen to me, Constance. My health, I fear, is break- 
ing; I am tormented by fearful visions; I am possessed 
by some magic influence. For several nights successively, 
before falling asleep, a cold tremor has gradually pervaded 
my frame ; the roots of my hair stand on end ; my teeth 


GODOLPIIIN. 


415 


chatter ; a vague horror seizes me ; my blood seems turned 
to a solid substance, so curdled and stagnant is it. I strive 
to speak, to cry out, but my voice clings to the roof of my 
mouth ; I feel that I have no longer power over myself. 
Suddenly, and in the very midst of this agony, I fall into 
a heavy sleep ; then come strange bewildering dreams, 
ith Yolktman’s daughter forever presiding over them; 
but with a changed countenance, calm, unutterably calm, 
and gazing on me with eyes that burn into my soul. 
The dream fades, I wake with the morning, but exhausted 
and enfeebled. I have consulted physicians ; I have taken 
drugs; but I cannot break the spell — the previous horror 
and the after-dreams. And just now, Constance, just 

how you see the window is open to the park, the gate of 

the garden is unclosed ; I happened to lift my eyes, and 
lo ! gazing upon me in the sickly moonlight, was the 
countenance of my dreams — Lucilla’s, but how altered ! 
Merciful Heaven ! is it a mockery, or can the living Lucilla 
really be in England ? and have these visions, these terrors 
been part of that mysterious sympathy which united ur 
ever, and which her father predicted should cease but with 
our lives ?” 

The emotions of Godolphin were so rarely visible, and 
in the present instance they were so unaffected, and so 
roused, that Constance could not summon courage to 
soothe, to cheer him ; she herself was alarmed and shocked* 
and glanced fearfully toward the window, lest the appa- 
rition he had spoken of should reappear. All without was 
Itill, not a leaf stirred on the trees in the Mall ; no human 


416 


GODOLPIIIN. 


figure was to be seen. She turned again to Godolphin, 
and kissed the drops from his brow and pressed his cheek 
to her bosom. 

1 I have a presentiment,” said he, “that something 
dreadful will happen shortly. I feel as if I were hear some 
great crisis of my life : and as if I were about to step from 
the bright and palpable world into regions of cloud and 
darkness. Constance, strange misgivings as to my choice 
in my past life haunt and perplex me. I have sought only 
the present; I have abjured all toil, all ambition, and 
laughed at the future ; my hand has plucked the rose- 
leaves, and now they lie withered in the grasp. My youth 
flies me — age scowls on me from the distance : an age of 
frivolities that I once scorned ; yet — yet, had I formed 

a different creed, how much I might have done ! But 

but, out on this cant ! My nerves are shattered, and I 
prate nonsense. Lend me your arm, Constance; let us go 
into the saloon, and send for music I” 

And all that night Constance watched by the side of 
Godolphin, and marked in mute terror the convulsions 
that wrung his sleep, the foam that gathered to his lip, 
the cries that broke from his tongue. But she was re- 
warded when, with the gray dawn, he awoke, and, catch- 
ing her tender and tearful gaze, flung himself upon her 
bosom and bade God bless her for her love ! 


G0D0LP1IIN. 


41: 


CHAPTER LX III. 

& MEETING BETWEEN CONSTANCE AND THE PROPHETESS. 

A strange suspicion had entered Constance’s mind, and 
H < Godolphin’s sake she resolved to put it to the proof. 
&ne drew her mantle round her stately figure, put on a 
large disguising bonnet, and repaired to Madame Liehbur’s 
hruse. 

Thcr Moorish girl opened the door to the countess ; and 
her strange dress, her African hue and features, relieved 
by the long, glittering pendants in her ears, while they 
seemed suited to the eccentric reputation of her mistress, 
brought a slight smile to the proud lip of Lady Erping- 
ham, as she conceived them a part of the charlatanism 
practiced by the soothsayer. The girl only replied to 
Lady Erpingham’s question by an intelligent sign ; and 
running lightly up the stairs, conducted the guest into an 
ante-room, where she waited but for a few moments be- 
fore she was admitted into Madame Liehbur’s apartment. 

The effect that the personal beauty of the diviner always 
produced on those who beheld her was not less powerful 
than usual on the surprised and admiring gaze of Lady 
Erpingham. She bowed her haughty brow with involun- 
tary respect, and took the seat to which the enthusiast 
beckoned. 

“And what, ladyy” said the soothsayer, in the foreign 
35* 2b 


418 


GODOLPIIIN. 


music of her low voice, “ what brings thee hither ? Wouldst 
thou gain, or hast thou lost, that gift our poor sex prizes 
so dearly beyond its value ? Is it of love that thou wouldst 
speak to the interpreter of dreams and the priestess of the 
things to come ?” 

While the bright-eyed Liehbur thus spoke, the countess 
examined through her veil the fair face before her, com- 
paring it with that description which Godolphin had given 
her of the sculptor’s daughter, and her suspicion acquired 
new strength. 

“ I seek not that which you allude to,” said Constance ; 
“but of the future, although without any definite object, I 
would indeed like to question you. All of us love to pry 
into dark recesses hid from our view, and over which you 
profess the empire.” 

“Your voice is sweet, but commanding,” said the oracle; 
“and your air is stately, as of one born in courts. Lift 
your veil, that I may gaze upon your face, and tell by its 
lines the fate your character has shaped for you.” 

“Alas 1” answered Constance, “life betrays few of its 
past signs by outward token. If you have no wiser art 
than that drawn from the lines and features of our counte- 
nances, I shall still remain what I am now — an unbeliever 
in your powers.” 

“ The brow, and the lip, and the eye, and the expression 
of each and all,” answered Liehbur, “are not the lying in- 
dex you suppose them.” 

“Then,” rejoined Constance, “by those signs will I read 
your own destiny, as you would read mine.” 


GO DOLPHIN. 


41 ? 


The sibyl started, and waved her hand impatiently; but 
Constance proceeded. 

“ Your birth, despite your fair locks, was under a south- 
ern sky ; you were nursed in the delusions you now teach ; 
you were loved, and left alone ; you are in the country of 
your lover. Is it not so? — am I not an oracle in my 
turn ?” 

The mysterious Liehbur fell back in her chair ; her lips 
apart and blanched — her hands clasped— her eyes fixed 
upon her visitant. 

“ Who are you V* she cried at last, in a shrill tone ; 
“who, of my own sex, knows my wretched history? 
Speak, speak ! — in mercy speak ! tell me more 1 convince 
me that you have but vainly guessed my secret, or that 
you have a right to know it !” 

“ Did not your father forsake, for the blue skies of 
Kome, his own colder shores ?” continued Constance, 
adopting the heightened and romantic tone of the one she 
addressed; “and, Percy Godolphin — is that name still 
•familiar to the ear of Lucilla Yolktman ?” 

A loud, long shriek burst from the lips of the sooth- 
sayer, and she sank at once lifeless on the ground. Greatly 
alarmed, and repenting her own abruptness, Constance 
hastened to her assistance. She lifted the poor being, 
whom she unconsciously had once contributed so deeply 
to injure, from the ground ; she loosened her dress, and 
perceived that around her neck hung a broad ivory neck- 
lace wrought with curious characters, and many uncouth 
forms and symbols. This evidence that, if deluding others, 


420 


GODOLP1IIN. 


the soothsayer deluded herself also, touched and affected 
the countess; and while she was still busy in chafing the 
temples of Lucilla, the Moor, brought to the spot by that 
sudden shriek, entered the apartment. She seemed sur- 
prised and terrified at her mistress’s condition, and pcured 
forth, in some tongue unknown to Constance, what seemed 
to her a volley of mingled reproach and lamentation. She 
seized Lady Erpingham’s hand, dashed it indignantly 
away, and, supporting herself the ashen cheek of Lucilla, 
motioned to Lady Erpingham to depart ; but Constance, 
not easily accustomed to obey, retained her position be- 
side the still insensible Lucilla ; and now, by slow degrees, 
and with quick and heavy sighs, the unfortunate daughter 
of Yolktman returned to life and consciousness. 

In assisting Lucilla, the countess had thrown aside her 
veil, and the eyes of the soothsayer opened upon that 
superb beauty, which once to see was never to forget. 
Involuntarily she again closed her eyes, and groaned audi- 
bly ; and then, summoning all her courage, she withdrew 
her hand from Constance’s clasp, and bade her Moorish* 
handmaid leave them once more alone. 

“So, then,” said Lucilla, after a pause, “it is Percy 
Godolphin’s wife, his English wife, who has come to gaze 
on the fallen, the degraded Lucilla ; and yet,” sinking her 

voice into a tone of ineffable and plaintive sweetness 

“yet I have slept on his bosom, and been dear and sacred 
to him as thou! Go, proud lady, go !— leave me to my 
mad, and sunken, and solitary state. Go !” 

“Dear Lucilla!” said Constance, kindly, and striving 


G0D0LPH1N. 


421 


once more to take her hand, “do not cast me away from 
you. I have long sympathized with your generous al- 
though erring heart — your hard and bitter misfortunes. 
Look on me only as your friend — nay, your sister, if you 
will. Let me persuade you to leave this strauge and 
desultory life ; choose your own home : I am rich to over- 
flowing; all you can desire shall be at your command. 
He shall not know more of you, unless (to assuage the 
remorse that the memory of you does, I know, still occa- 
sion him) you will suffer him to learn, from your own 
hand, that you are well and at ease, and that you do not 
revoke your former pardon. Come, dear Lucilla !” and 
the arm of the generous aL.d bright-souled Constance 
gently wound round the feeble frame of Lucilla, who now, 
reclining back, wept as if her heart would break. “ Come, 
give me the deep, the grateful joy of thinking I can min- 
ister to your future comforts. I was the cause of all your 
wretchedness ; but for me, Godolphin would have been 
yours forever — would probably, by marriage, have re- 
dressed your wrongs ; but for me you would not have 
wandered an outcast over the inhospitable world. Let 
me in something repair what I have cost you. Speak to 
me, Lucilla I” 

“Yes, I will speak to you,” said poor Lucilla, throwing 
herself on the ground, and clasping with grateful warmth 
the knees of her gentle soother ; “ for long, long years — . 
I dare not think how many — I have not heard the voice 
of kindness fall upon my ear. Among strange faces and 
harsh tongues hath my lot been cast; and if I have 

36 


422 


GODOLPIIIN. 


wrought out from the dreams of my young hours the 
course of this life (which you contemn, but not justly), it 
has been that I may stand alone and not dependent; 
feared and not despised. And now you, you whom I ad- 
mire and envy, and would reverence more than living wo- 
man (for he loves you and deems you worthy of him), 
you, lady, speak to me as a sister would speak, and — 

and ” Here sobs interrupted Lucilla’s speech ; and 

Constance herself, almost equally affected, and finding it 
vain to attempt to raise her, knelt by her side, and ten- 
derly caressing her, ^sought to comfort her, even while she 
wept in doing so. 

And this was a beautiful passage in the life of the lofty 
Constance. Never did she seem more noble than when, 
thus lowly and humbling herself, she knelt beside the poor 
victim of her husband’s love, and whispered to the dis- 
eased and withering heart tidings of comfort, charity, 
home, and a futurity of honor and of peace. But this 
was not a dream that could long lull the perturbed and 
erring brain of Lucilla Yolktman. And when she re- 
covered, in some measure, her self-possession, she rose, 
and throwing back the wild hair from her throbbing tem- 
ples, she said, in a calm and mournful voice : 

“Your kindness comes too late. I am dying, fast — fast. 
All that is left me in the world are these very visions, this 
very power — call it delusion if you will — from which you 
would tear me. Nay, look not so reproachfully, and in 
such wonder. Do you not know that men have in poverty, 
sickness, and all outer despair, clung to a creative spirit 


GODOLPHIN. 


423 


within — a world peopled with delusions — and called it 
Poetry ? and that gift has been more precious to them 
than all that wealth and pomp could bestow ? So,” con- 
tinued Lucilla, with fervid and insane enthusiasm, u so is 
this, my creative spirit, my imaginary world, my inspira- 
tion, what poetry may be to others. I may be mistaken 
in the truth of my belief. There are times when my brain 
is cool, and my frame at rest, and I sit alone and think 
over the real past — when I feel my trust shaken, and my 
ardor damped : but that thought does not console but 
torture me, and I hasten to plunge once more among the 
charms, and spells, and mighty dreams, that wrap me from 
my living self. Oh, lady ! bright, and beautiful, and lofty, 
as you are, there may come a time when you can conceive 
that even madness may be a relief. For” — (and here the 
wandering light burned brighter in the enthusiast’s glow- 
ing eyes) — “for, when the night is round us, and there is 
peace on earth, and the world’s children sleep, it is a wild 
joy to sit alone and vigilant, and forget that we live and 
are wretched. The stars speak to us then with a wondrous 
find stirring voice; they tell us of the doom of men and 
the wreck of empires, and prophesy of the far events which 
they taught to the old Chaldeans. And then the Winds, 
walking to and fro as they list, bid us go forth with them 
and hear the songs of the midnight spirits ; for you know,” 
she -whispered with a smile, putting her hand upon the arm 
of the appalled and shrinking Constance, who now saw 
how hopeless was the ministry she had undertaken, “that 
this world is given up to two tribes of things that live and 


124 


GODOLPHIN. 


have a soul : the one bodily and.,palpable as we are ; the 
other more glorious, but invisible to our dull sight * 
though I have seen them— Dread Solemn Shadows, even 
in their mirth; the night is their season as the day ia 
ours; they march in the moonbeams, and are borne upon 
the wings of the winds. And with them, and by their 
thoughts, I raise myself from what I am and have been. 
Ah, lady, wouldst thou take this comfort from me ?” 

“But,” said Constance, gathering courage from the gen- 
tleness which Lucilla’s insanity now wore, and trying to 
soothe, not contradict her in her present vein, “ but in the • 
country, Lucilla, in some quiet and sheltered nook, you 
might indulge these visions without the cares and uncer- 
tainty that must now perplex you ; without leading this 
dangerous and roving life, which must at times expose 
you to insult, to annoyance, and discontent you with your- 
self.” 

“You are mistaken, lady,” said the astrologer, proudly; 
“ none know me who do not fear. I am powerful, and I 
p U g my power — it comforts me : without it, what should 

j be ? an abject, forsaken, miserable woman. No ! that 

power I possess — to shake men’s secret souls — even if it 
be a deceit — even if I should laugh at them, not pity — 
reconciles me to myself and to the past. And X am not 
poor, madam,” as, with the common caprice of her infir- 
mity, an angry suspicion seemed to cross her ; “ I want no 
one’s charity, I have learned to maintain myself. Nay, I 
could be even wealthy if I would 1” 

“And,” said Constance, seeing that for the present she 


GODOLPHIN. 


425 


must postpone her benevolent intentions, “ and he— Godol- 
phin — you forgive him still ?” 

At that name, it was as if a sudden charm had been 
whispered to the fevered heart of the poor fanatic ; her 
head sank from its proud bearing; a deep, a soft blush 
colored the wan cheek ; her arms drooped beside her ; 
she trembled violently ; and, after a moment’s silence, sank 
again on her seat and covered her face with her hands. 
“Ah !” said she, softly, “ that word brings me back to my 
young days, when I asked no power but what love gave 
me over one heart : it brings me back to the blue Italian 
lake, and the waving pines, and our solitary home, and my 
babe’s distant grave. Tell me,” she cried, again starting 
up, “ has he not spoken of me lately — has he not seen me 
in his dreams ? have I not been present to his soul when 
the frame, torpid and locked, severed us no more, and, in 
the still hours, I charmed myself to his gaze ? Tell me, 
has he not owned that Lucilla haunted his pillow ? Tell 
me; and if I err, my spells are nothing, my power is 
vanity, and I am the helpless creature thou wouldst be- 
lieve me 1” 

Despite her reason and her firm sense, Constance half 
shuddered at these mysterious words, as she recalled what 
Percy had told her of his dreams the preceding evening, 
and the emotions she herself had witnessed in his slumbers 
when she watched beside his bed. She remained silent, 
and Lucilla regarded her countenance with a sort of 
triumph. 

“ My art, then, is not so idle as thou wouldst hold it. 

36 * 


426 


GODOLPHIN. 


But— hush !— last night I beheld- him, not in spirit, but 
visibly, face to face : for I wander at times before his 
home ( his home was once mine !), and he saw me, and was 
smitten with fear ; in these worn features he could recog- 
nize not the living Lucilla he had known. But go to him! 
— thou, his wife, his own — go to him; tell him — no, tell 
him not of me. He must not seek me ; we must not hold 
parley together : for oh, lady ” (and Lucilla’s face became 
settled into an expression so sad, so unearthly sad, that no 
word can paint, no heart conceive, its utter and solemn 
sorrow), “when we two meet again to commune, — to con- 
verse, when once more I touch that hand, when once 

more I feel that beloved, that balmy breath; — my last 
hour is at hand — and danger — imminent, dark, and deadly 
danger, clings fast to him!” 

As she spoke, Lucilla closed her eyes, as if to shut some 
horrid vision from her gaze ; and Constance looked fear- 
fully round, almost expecting some apparition at hand. 
Presently Lucilla, moving silently across the room, beck- 
oned to the countess to follow: she did so: they entered 
another apartment : before a recess there hung a black 
curtain : Lucilla drew it slowly aside, and Constance 
turned her eyes from a dazzling light that broke upon 
them ; when she again looked, she beheld a sort of glass 
dial marked with various quaint hieroglyphics and the 
figures of angels, beautifully wrought; but around the 
dial, which was circular, were ranged many stars, and the 
planets, set in due order. These were lighted from within 
by some chemical process, and burnt with a clear and lus- 


GODOLPHIN. 


m 


trous, but silver light. And Constance observed that the 
dial turned round, and that the stars turned with it, each 
in a separate motion ; and in the midst of the dial were 
the hands as of a clock — that moved, but so slowly, that 
the most patient gaze alone could observe the motion. 

While the wondering Constance regarded this singular 
device, Lucilla pointed to one star that burned brighter 
than the rest ; and below it, half way down the dial, was 
another, a faint and sickly orb, that, when watched, seemed 
to perform a much more rapid and irregular course than 
its fellows. 

“The bright star is his,” said she; “and yon dim and 
dying one is the type of mine. Note : in the course they 
both pursue, they must meet at last ; and when they meet, 
the mechanism of the whole halts — the work of the dial is 
forever done. These hands indicate hourly the progress 
made to that end ; for it is the mimicry and symbol of 
mine. Thus do I number the days of my fate ; thus do I 
know, even almost to a second, the period in which I shall 
join my Father that is in heaven I 

“And now,” continued the maniac (though maniac is 
too harsh and decided a word for the dreaming wildness 
of Lucilla’s insanity), as, dropping the curtain, she too£ 
her guest’s hand and conducted her back into the outer 
room — “and now, farewell 1 You sought me, and, I feel, 
only from kind and generous motives. We never shall 
meet more. Tell not your hubsand that you have seen 
me. He will know soon, too soon, of my existence : fain 
would I spare him that pang, and,” growing pale as she 


28 


GODOLPHIN. 


spoke, “ that peril; but Fate forbids it. What is writ, is 
writ : and who shall blot God’s sentence from the stars, 
which are his book ? Farewell ! high thoughts are graved 
upon your brow : may they bless you ; or, where they fail 
to bless, may they console and support. Farewell 1 I 
have not yet forgotten to be grateful, and I still dare to 
pray.” 

Thus saying, Lucilla kissed the hand she had held, and 
turning hastily away, regained the room she had just left; 
and, locking the door, left the stunned and bewildered 
countess to depart from the melancholy abode. With fal- 
tering steps she quitted the chamber, and at the foot of the 
stairs the little Moor awaited her. To her excited fancy 
there was something eldritch and preternatural in the gaze 
of the young African, and the grin of her pearly teeth, as 
she opened the door to the visitant. Hastening to her 
carriage, which she had left at a corner of the square, the 
countess rejoiced when she gained it ; and throwing her- 
self back on the luxurious cushions, felt as exhausted by 
this starry and weird incident in the epic of life’s common 
career, as if she had partaken of that overpowering inspi- 
ration which she now almost incredulously asked herself, as 
she looked forth on the broad day and the busy streets if 
she had really witnessed. 


GODOLPHIN. 


429 


CHAPTER LXIY. 

SlUCILLA’s FLIGHT THE PERPLEXITY OF LADY ERPINGHAM A 

CHANGE COMES OVER GODOLPHIN’S MIND — HIS CONVERSATION 
WITH RADCLYFFE — GENERAL ELECTION — GODOLPHIN BECOMES A 
SENATOR. 

No human heart ever beat with more pure and generous 
emotions, when freed from the political fever that burned 
within her (withering, for the moment, the chastened and 
wholesome impulses of her nature), than those which 
animated the heart of the queenly Constance. She sent 
that evening for the most celebrated physician in London 
— that polished and courtly man who seems born for the 
maladies of the drawing-room, but who, beneath so urbane 
a demeanor, conceals so accurate and profound a knowledge 
of the disorders of his unfortunate race. I say accurate 
and profound comparatively, for positive knowledge of 
pathology is what no physician in modern times and civil- 
ized countries really possesses. No man cures us — the 
highest art is not to kill 1 Constance, then, sent for this 
physician, and, as delicately as possible, related the unfor- 
tunate state of Lucilla, and the deep anxiety she felt for 
her mental and bodily relief. The physician promised to 
call the next day ; he did so, late in the afternoon — Lu- 
cilla was gone. Strange, self-willed, mysterious, she came 
like a dream, to warn, to terrify, and to depart. They 


430 


GODOLPHIN. 


knew not whither she had fled, and her Moorish handmaid 
alone attended her. 

Constance was deeply chagrined at this intelligence; for 
she had already begun to build castles in the air, which 
poor Lucilla, with a frame restored, aud a heart at ease, 
and nothing left of the past but a soft and holy penitence, 
should inhabit. The countess, however, consoled herself 
with the hope that Lucilla would at least write to her, 
and mention her new place of residence ; but days passed 
and no letter came. 

Constance felt that her benevolent intentions were 
doomed to be unfulfilled. She was now greatly perplexed 
whether or not to relate to Godolphin the interview that 
had taken place between her and Lucilla. She knew the 
deep, morbid, and painful interest which the memory of 
this wild and visionary creature created in Godolphin ; 
and she trembled at the feelings she might reawaken by 
even a faint picture of the condition and mental infirmities 
of her whose life he had so darkly shadowed. She resolved, 
therefore, at all events for the present, and until every hope 
of discovering Lucilla once more had expired, to conceal 
the meeting that had occurred. And in this resolve she 
was strengthened by perceiving that Godolpliin’s mind had 
become gradually calmed from its late excitement, and that 
he had begun to consider, or at least appeared to con- 
sider, the apparition of Lucilla at his window as the mere 
delusion of a heated imagination. His nights grew once 
more tranquil, and freed from the dark dreams that had 
tormented his brain ; and even the cool and unimaginative 


GODOLPHIN. 


431 


Constance could scarcely divest herself of the wild fancy 
that, when Lucilla was near, a secret and preternatural 
sympathy between Godolphin and the reader of the stars 
had produced that influence over his nightly dreams which 
paled, and receded, and vanished, as Lucilla departed from 
the actual circle in which he lived. 

It was at this time, too, that a change was perceptible 
in Godolphin’s habits, and crept gradually over the char- 
acter of his thoughts. Dissipation ceased to allure him, 
the light wit of his parasites palled upon his ear; mag- 
nificence had lost its gloss, and the same fastidious exact- 
ing thirst for the ideal which had disappointed him in the 
better objects of life, began now to discontent him with its 
glittering pleasures. 

The change was natural, and the causes not difficult to 
fathom. The fact was, that Godolphin had now arrived at 
that period of existence when a man’s character is almost 
invariably subject to great change ; the crisis in life’s fever, 
when there is a new turn in our fate, and our moral death 
or regeneration is sealed by the silent wavering, or the 
solemn decision, of the hour 1 Arrived at the confines of 
middle age, there is an outward innovation in the whole 
system ; unlooked-for symptoms break forth in the bodily, 
unlooked-for symptoms in the mental, frame. It happened 
to Godolphin that, at this critical period, a chance, a cir- 
cumstance, a straw, had reunited his long interrupted but 
never stifled affections to the image of his beautiful Con- 
stance. The reign of passion, the magic of those sweet 
illusions, that ineffable yearning which possession mocks, 


432 


GODOLPHIN. 


although it quells at last, were indeed forever over ; but a 
friendship more soft and genial than exists in any relation, 
save that of husband and wife, had sprung up, almost as 
by a miracle (so sudden was it), between breasts for years 
divided. And the experience of those years had taught 
Godolphin how frail and unsubstantial had been ail the 
other ties he had formed. He wondered, as sitting alone 
with Constance, her tenderness recalled the past, her wit 
enlivened the present, and his imagination still shed a 
glory and a loveliness over the future, that he had been so 
long insensible to the blessing of that communion which 
he now experienced. He did not perceive what in fact 
was the case — that the tastes and sympathies of each, 
blunted by that disappointment which is the child of ex- 
perience, were more- willing to concede somewhat to the 
tastes and sympathies of the other ; that Constance gave 
a more indulgent listening to his beautiful refinements of 
an ideal and false epicurism ; that he, smiling still, smiled 
with kindness, not with scorn, at the sanguine politics, the 
worldly schemes, and the rankling memories of the intrigu- 
ing Constance. Fortunately, too, for her, the times were 
such, that men who never before dreamed of political in- 
terference were roused and urged into the mighty conflux 
of battling interests, which left few moderate and none 
neuter. Every coterie resounded with political war-cries ; 
very dinner rang, from soup to the coffee, with the merits 
-if the bill; wherever Godolphin turned for refuge, Reform 
still assailed him ; and by degrees the universal feeling 
that was at first ridiculed, was at last, although reluctantly 
admitted by his mind. 


GODOLPHIN. 


433 


“ Why,” said he, one day, musingly, to Radclyffe, whom 
he met in the old Green Park — (for since the conversation 
recorded between Radclyffe and Constance, the former 
came little to Erpingham House), “ why should I not try 
a yet wwtried experiment ? Why should I not live like 
others in their graver as in their lighter pursuits ? I con- 
fess, when I look back to the years I have spent in Eng- 
land, I feel that I calculated erroneously. I chalked out 
a plan — I have followed it rigidly. I have lived for self, 
for pleasure, for luxury; I have summoned wit, beauty, 
even wisdom around me. I have been the creator of a 
magic circle, but to the magician himself the magic was 
tame and ignoble. In short, I have dreamed, and am 
awake. Yet, what course of life should supply this, which 
I think of deserting? Shall I go once more abroad, and 
penetrate some untraveled corner of the earth ? Shall I 
retire into the country, and write, draining my mind of 
the excitement that presses on it; or lastly, shall I plunge 
with my contemporaries into the great gulf of actual events, 
and strive, and fret, and struggle ? — or — in short, Radclyffe, 
you are a wise man; advise me 1” 

“Alas!” answered Radclyffe, “it is of no use advising 
one to be happy who has no object beyond himself. Either 
enthusiasm, or utter mechanical coldness, is necessary to 
reconcile men to the cares and mortifications of life. You 
must feel nothing, or you must feel for others. Unite 
yourself to a great object; see its goal distinctly; cling to 
its course courageously; hope for its triumph sanguinely; 
and on its majestic progress you sail, as in a ship, agitated 

37 2C 


434 


GODOLPHIN. 


indeed by the storms, but unheeding the breeze and the 
surge that would appall the individual effort. The larger 
public objects make us glide smoothly and unfelt over our 
minor private griefs. To be happy, my dear Godolphin, 
you must forget yourself. Your refining and poetical tem- 
perament preys upon your content. Learn benevolence— 
it is the only cure to a morbid nature.” 

Godolphin was greatly struck by this answer of Iiad- 
clyflfe ; the more so, as he had a deep faith in the unaf- 
fected sincerity and the calculating wisdom of his adviser. 
He looked hard in Radclyffe’s face, and, after a pause of 
some moments, replied, slowly, “I believe you are right 
after all ; and I have learned, in a few short sentences, the 
secret of a discontented life.” 

Godolphin would have sought other opportunities of 
conversing with Radclyfle, but events soon parted them. 
Parliament was dissolved ! . What an historical event is 
recorded in those words ! The moment the king con- 
sented to that measure, the whole series of subsequent 
events became, to an ordinary prescience, clear as in a 
mirror. Parliament dissolved in the heat of the popular 
enthusiasm, a majority, a great majority of Reformers was 
sure to be returned. 

Constance perceived at a glance the whole train of con- 
sequences issuing from that one event; perceived and 
exulted. A glory had gone forever from the party she 
abhorred. Her father was already avenged. She heard 
his scornful laugh ring forth from the depths of his for- 
gotten grave 1 


GODOLPHIN. 


435 


London emptied itself at once. England was one elec- 
tion. Godolphin remained almost alone. For the first 
time a sense of littleness crept over him ; a feeling of insig- 
nificance, which wounded and galled his vain nature. In 
these great struggles he was nothing. The admired— the 
cultivated — spirituel — the splendid Godolphin, sank below 
the commonest adventurer, the coarsest brawler — yea, the 
humblest freeman, who felt his stake in the state, joined 
the canvass, swelled the cry, and helped in the mighty 
battle between old things and new, which was so reso- 
lutely begun. This feeling gave an impetus to the growth 
of the new aspirations he had already suffered his mind to 
generate ; and Constance marked, with vivid delight, that 
he now listened to her plans with interest, and examined 
the political field with a curious and searching gaze. 

But she was soon condemned to a disappointment pro- 
portioned to her delight. Though Godolphin had hitherto 
taken no interest in party politics, his prejudices, his feel- 
ings, his habits of mind, were all the reverse of democratic. 
When he once began to examine the bearings of the 
momentous question that agitated England, he was not 
slow in coming to conclusions which threatened to pro- 
duce a permanent disagreement between Constance and 
himself. 

“ You wish me to enter parliament, my dear Constance,” 
said he, with his quiet smile; “it would be an experiment 
dangerous to the union re-established between us. I should 
vote against your Bill.” 

“You!” exclaimed Constance, with warmth. “Is it 


436 


GODOLPHIN. 


possible that you can sympathize with the fears of a selfish 
oligarchy — with the cause of the merchants and traffickers 
of the plainest right of a free people — the right to select 
their representatives ?” 

“My dear Constance,” returned Godolphin, “my whole 
theory of government is aristocratic. The right of the 
people to choose representatives ! — you may as well say 
the right of the people to choose kings, or magistrates, 
and judges — or clergymen and archbishops ! The people 
have, it is true, the abstract and original right to choose 
all these, and every year to chop and change them as they 
please ; but the people, very properly, in all states, mort- 
gage their elementary rights for one catholic and practical 
right — the right to be well governed. It may be no more 
to the advantage of the state that the People (that is, the 
majority, the populace) should elect uncontrolled all the 
members of the House of Commons — than that they should 
elect all the pastors of their religion. The sole thing we 
have to consider is, will they be better governed V ’ 

“Unquestionably,” said Constance. 

“Unquestionably! — Well, 1 question it. I foresee a 
more even balance of parties — nothing else. When par- 
ties are evenly balanced — states tremble. In good govern- 
ment there should be somewhere sufficient power to carry 
on, not unexamined, but at least with vigor, the different 
operations of government itself. In free countries, there- 
fore, one party ought to preponderate sufficiently over the 
other. If it do not — all the state measures are crippled, 
delayed, distorted, and the state languishes while the doc- 


GODOLPHIN. 


437 


tors dispute as to the medicines to be applied to it. You 
will find by your Bill, not that the Tories are destroyed, 
but that the Whigs and the Radicals are strengthened — 
the Lords are not crushed, but the Commons are in a state 
to contest with them. Hence party battles upon catch- 
words — struggles between the two chambers for things of 
straw. You who desire progress and movement will find 
the real affairs of this great Artificial Empire — in its trade 
— commerce — colonies — internal legislation — standing still 
while the Whigs and the Tories pelt each other with the 
quibbles of faction. No — I should vote against your Bill 1 
I am not for popular governments, though I like free 
states. All the advantages of democracy seem to me more 
than counterbalanced by the sacrifice of the peace and 
tranquillity, the comfort and the grace, the dignity and 
the charities of life that democracies usually entail. If the 
object of men is to live happily — not to strive and to fret 
— not to make money in the market-place, and call each 
other rogues on the hustings, who would not rather be a 
German than an American ? I own I regret to differ with 
you. For — but no matter ” 

11 For ! — what were you about to say ?” 

11 For, then, since you must know it, I am beginning to 
feel interest in these questions — excitement is contagious. 
And, after all, if a man really deem his mother-country in 
some danger, inaction is not philosophy, but a species of 
parricide. But to think of the daily and hourly pain I 
should occasion to you, my beloved and ardent Constance 

by shocking all your opinions, counteracting all your 

37 * 


438 


GODOLPHIN. 


schemes, working against objects which your father’s fate 
and your early associations have so singularly made duties 
in your eyes — to do all this is a patriotism beyond me. 
Let us glide out of this whirlpool, and hoist sail for some 
nook in the country where we can hear gentler sounds than 
the roar of the democracy.” 

Constance sighed, and suffered Godolphin to quit her in 
silence. But her generous heart was touched by his own 
generosity. This is one of the great curses of a woman 
who aspires to the man’s part of political controversy. If 
the man choose to act, the woman, with all her wiles, her 
intrigues, her arts, is powerless. If Godolphin were to 
enter parliament a Tory, the great Whig rendezvous of 
Erpingham House was lost, and Constance herself a cipher 
— and her father’s wrongs forgotten, and the stern purpose 
of her masculine career baffled at the very moment of suc- 
cess. She now repented that she had ever desired to 
draw Godol-phin’s attention to political matters. She 
wondered at her own want of foresight. How, with his 
love for antiquity — his predilections for the elegant and 
the serene — his philosophy of the “ Rose-garden ” — could 
she ever have supposed that he would side with the bold 
objects and turbulent will of a popular party in a stormy 
crisis ! 

The subject was not renewed. But she had the pain of 
observing that Godolphin’s manner was altered : — he took 
pleasure in none of his old hobbies — he was evidently dis- 
satisfied with himself. In fact, it is true that he, for the 
first time in his life, felt that there is a remorse to the mind 


GODOLPHIN. 


439 


as well as to tlie soul, and that a man of genius cannot be 
perpetually idle without, as he touches on the middle of his 
career, looking to the past with some shame, and to the 
future with some ambition. One evening, when he had sat 
by the open window in a thoughtful and melancholy, almost 
morose, silence for a considerable time, Constance, after a 
violent struggle with herself, rose suddenly, and fell on his 
neck. 

“ Forgive me, Percy,” she said, unable to suppress her 
tears, — “forgive me — it is past — I have no right that you, 
so superior to myself, should be sacrificed to my — my pre- 
judices you would call them — so be it. Is it for your wife 
to condemn you to be inglorious ? No — no — dear Godol- 
phin — fulfill your destiny— you are born for high objects. 
Be active — be distinguished — and I will ask no more 1” 

John Yernon, in that hour you were forgotten. Who 
among the dead can ever hope for fidelity when love to the 
living invites a woman to betray ! 

“ My sweet Constance,” said Godolphin, drawing her to 
his heart, and affected in proportion as he appreciated all 
that in that speech his wife gave up for his sake — the all, 
far more than the lovely person, the splendid wealth, the 
lofty rank that she had brought to his home, — “my sweet 
Constance, do not think I will take advantage of words so 
generously but hastily spoken. Time enough hereafter to 
think of differences between us. At present let us indulge 
only the luxury of the new love— the holiness of the new 
nuptials— that have made us as one Being. Perhaps this 
restlessness, so unusual to me, will pass away — let us wait 


440 


GODOLPHIN. 


awhile. At present ‘ Sparta has many a worthier sou.’ 
One other year, one sweet summer, of the private life we 
have too much suffered to glide away, enjoyed, and then we 
will see whether the harsh realities of Ambition be worth 
either a concession or a dispute. Let us go into the 
country — to-morrow if you will.” 

And as Constance was about to answer, he sealed her 
lips with his kiss. 

Bu»> Lady Erpingham was not one of those who wavei 
in what they deem a duty. She passed the night in stern 
and sleepless commune with herself ; she was aware of all 
that she hazarded — all that she renounced : she was even 
tortured by scruples as to the strange oath that had almost 
unsexed her. Still, in spite of all, she felt that nothing 
would excuse her in suffering that gifted and happy intel- 
lect, now awakened from the sleep of the Sybarite, to fall 
back into its lazy and effeminate repose. She had no 
right to doom a human soul to rot away in its clay. Per- 
haps, too, she hoped, as all polemical enthusiasts do, that 
Godolphin, once aroused, would soon become her convert. 
Be that as it may, she delayed, on various pretenses, their 
departure from London. She went secretly the next day 
to one of the proprietors of the close Boroughs, the exist 
ence of which was about to be annihilated, and a few dayi 
afterward Godolphin received a letter informing him that 
he had been duly elected member for * * * *. I will not 
say what were his feelings at those tidings. Perhaps, such 
is man’s proud and wayward heart, he felt shame to be so 
outdone by Constance. 


GODOLPHIN. 


44 1 


CHAPTER LX V. 

<EW VIEWS OF A PRIVILEGED ORDER — THE DEATH-BED OF AUGUSTU* 
SAVILLE. 

This event might indeed have been an era in the life of 
Percy Godolphin, had that life been spared to a more ex- 
tended limit than it was ; and yet, so long had his ambi- 
tion been smoothed and polished away by his peculiarities 
of thought, and so little was his calm and indifferent tone 
of mind suited to the hot contests and nightly warfare 
of parliamentary politics, that it is not probable he would 
ever have won a continuous and solid distinction in a 
career which requires either obtuseness of mind or enthu- 
siasm of purpose to encounter the repeated mortifications 
and failures* which the most brilliant debutant ordinarily 
endures. As it was, however, it produced a grave and 
solemn train of thought in Godolphin’s breast. He mused 
much over his past life, and the musing did not satisfy 
him. He felt like one of those recorded in Physiological 
history who have been in a trance for years; and now 
slowly awakening, he acknowledged the stir and rush of 
revived but confused emotions. Nature, perhaps, had in- 
tended Godolphin for a poet; for, with the exception of 
the love of glory, the poetical characteristics were rife 
within him ; and over his whole past existence the dim- 
ness of unexpressed poetical sensation had clung and 
37 * 


442 


GODOLPHIN. 


hovered. It was this which had deadened his soul to the 
active world, and wrapped him in the land of dreams; it 
was this which had induced that vague and restless dis- 
satisfaction with the Actual which had brought the thirst 
for the Ideal ; it was this which had made him fastidious 
in love, repining in pleasure, magnificent in luxury, seek- 
ing and despising all tilings in the same breath. There 
are many, perhaps, of this sort, who, having the poet’s 
nature, have never found the poet’s vent to his emotions ; 
have wandered over the visionary world without chancing 
to discover the magic wand that was stored within the 
dark chamber of their mind, and would have reduced the 
visions into shape and substance. Alas ! what existence 
can be more unfulfilled than that of one who has the soul 
of the poet and not the skill ? who has the susceptibility 
and the craving, not the consolation of the reward ? 

But if this cloud of dreamlike emotion had so long hung 
over Godolphin, it began now to melt away from his heart; 
a clearer and distincter view of the large objects of life 
lay before him ; and he felt that he was standing, half 
stunned and passive, in the great crisis of his fate. 

The day was now fixed for their departure to Wendover, 
when Saville was taken alarmingly ill ; Godolphin was sent 
for, late one evening. He found the soi-disant Epicurean 
at the point of death, but in perfect possession of his senses. 
The scene around him was emblematic of his life: save 
Godolphin, not a friend was by. Saville had some dozen 
or two of natural children — where were they ? He had 
abandoned them to their fate : he knew not of their exist* 


GODOLPHIN. 


44H 


ence, nor they of his death. Lonely in his selfishness was 
he left to breathe out the small soul of a man of bon-ton! 
But I must do Saville the justice to say, that if he was 
without the mourners and the attendants that belong to 
natural ties, he did not require them. His was no whim- 
pering exit from life : the champagne was drained to the 
last drop ; and Death, like the true boon companion, was 
about to shatter the empty glass. 

“Well, my friend,” said Saville, feebly, but pressing 
with weak fingers Godolphin’s hand, — “ well, the game is 
up, the lights are going out, and presently the last guest 
will depart, and all be darkness I” Here the doctor came 
to the bedside with a cordial. The dying man, before he 
took it, fixed upon the leech an eye which, although fast 
glazing, still retained something of its keen, searching 
shrewdness. 

“Now tell me, my good sir, how many hours more can 
you keep in this — this breath ?” 

The doctor looked at Godolphin. 

“I understand you,” said Saville; “you are shy on 
these points. Never be shy, my good fellow; it is inex- 
cusable after twenty : besides, it is a bad compliment to 
my nerves — a gentleman is prepared for every event. Sir, 
it is only a rotuvisv whom death, or anything else, takes 
by surprise. How many hours, then, can X live ? 

“Not many, I fear, sir: perhaps until daybreak.” 

“My day breaks about twelve o’clock p.m.,” said Sa- 
ville, as dryly as his gasps would let him. “Very well; 
—give me the cordial ;— don’t let me go to sleep— I don’t 


G 0 D 0 L r II I N. 


144 

want to be cheated out of a minute. So, so ! I am better. 
You may withdraw, doctor. Let my spaniel come up. 
Bustle, Bustle! — poor fellow! poor fellow! Lie down, 
sir ! be quiet ! And now, Godolphin, a few words in fare- 
well. I always liked you greatly; you know you were my 
j protege , and you have turned out well. You have not 
been led away by the vulgar passions of politics, and 
place, and power. You have had power over power it- 
self; you have not office, but you have fashion. You 
have made the greatest match in England ; very prudently 
not marrying Constance Yernon, very prudently marrying 
Lady Erpingham. You are at the head and front of 
society; you have excellent taste, and spend your wealth 
properly. All this must make your conscience clear — a 
wonderful consolation I Always keep a sound conscience ; 
it is a great blessing on one’s death-bed — it is a great 
blessing to me in this hour, for I have played my part 
decently — eh ? I have enjoyed life as much as so dull a 
possession can be enjoyed ; I have loved, gamed, drunk, 
but I* have never lost my character as a gentleman : thank 
Heaven, I have no remorse of that sort I Follow my ex- 
ample to the last, and you will die as easily. I have left 
you my correspondence and my journal : you may publish 
them if you like ; if not, burn them. They are full of 
amusing anecdotes; but I don’t care for fame, as you well 
know — especially posthumous fame. Do as you please, 

then, with my literary remains. Take care of my dog 

’tis a good creature; and let me be quietly buried. No 
bad taste — no ostentation — no epitaph. I am very glad 


GODOLPHIN. 


445 


I die before the d d Revolution that must come; I 

don’t want to take wine with the Member for Holborn 
Bars. I am a type of a system ; I expire before the sys- 
tem : my death is the herald of its fall,” 

With these expressions — not continuously uttered, but 
at short intervals — Saville turned away his face : his 
breathing became thick : he fell into the slumber he had 
deprecated ; and, after about an hour’s silence, died away 
as insensibly as an infant. Sic transit gloria mundi! 

The first living, countenance beside the death-bed on 
which Godolphin’s eye fell was that of Fanny Millinger; 
she (who had been much with Saville during his latter 
days, for her talk amused him, and her good nature made 
her willing to amuse any one) had been, at his request, 
summoned also with Godolphin at the sudden turn of his 
disease. She was at the theater at the time, and had only 
just arrived when the deceased had fallen into his last 
sleep. There, silent and shocked, she stood by the bed, 
opposite Godolphin. She had not stayed to change her 
stage-dress; and the tinsel and mock jewels glittered on 
the revolted eye of her quondam lover. What a type of 
the life just extinguished ! What a satire on its mounte- 
bank artificialities ! 

Some little time after, she joined Godolphin in the deso- 
late apartment below. She put her hand in his, and her 
tears — for she wept easily — flowed fast down her cheeks, 
washing away the lavish rouge which imperfectly masked 
the wrinkles that Time had lately begun to sow on a sur 
face Godolphin had remembered so fair and smooth. 

38 


446 


GODOLPHIN. 


“Poor Saville!” said she, falteringly; “lie died with- 
out a pang. Ah ! he had the best temper possible.’ 

Godolphin sat by the writing-table of the deceased, 
shading his brow with the hand which the actress left dis- 
engaged. 

“Fanny,” said he, bitterly, after a pause, “the world is 
indeed a stage. It has lost a consummate actor, though 
in a small part.” 

The saying was wrung from Godolphin — and was not 
said unkindly, though it seemed so, — for he too had tears 
in his eyes. 

“Ah,” said she, “ the play-house has indeed taught us, 
in our youth, many things which the real world could not 
teach us better.” 

“ Life differs from the play only in this,” said Godol- 
phin, some time afterward ; “ it has no plot — all is vague, 
desultory, unconnected— till the curtain drops with the 
mystery unsolved.” 

Those were the last words that Godolphin ever ad- 
dressed to the actress. 


GODOLPHIN. 


447 


CHAPTER LXVI.- 

THE JOURNEY AND THE SURPRISE — A WALK IN THE SUMMER NIGHT 

THE STARS, AND THE ASSOCIATION THAT MEMORY MAKES WITH 

NATURE. 

This event detained Godolphin some days longer in 
town. He saw the. last rites performed to Saville, and he 
was present at the opening of the will. 

As in life Saville had never lent a helping hand to the 
distressed, as he had mixed with the wealthy only, so now 
to the wealthy only was his wealth devoted. The rich 
Godolphin was his principal heir; not a word was even 
said about his illegitimate children, not an inquiry ordained 
toward his poor relations. In this, as in all the formula 
of his will, Saville followed the prescribed customs of the 
world. 

Fast went the panting steeds that bore Constance and 
Godolphin from the desolate city. Bright was the summer 
sky, and green looked the smiling fields that lay on either 
side their road. Nature was awake and active. What a 
delicious contrast to the scenes of Art which they left be- 
hind ! Constance exerted herself to the utmost to cheer 
the spirits of her companion, and succeeded. In the small 
compass which confined them together, their conversation 
flowed in confidence and intimate affection. Not since the 
first month of their union had they talked with less reserve 


GODOLPHIN. 


Uh 

and more entire love — only there was this difference in 
their topics : they then talked of the future only, they now 
talked more of the past. They uttered mauy a fond re- 
gret over their several faults to each other ; and, with 
clasped hands, .congratulated themselves on their present 
reunion of heart. They allowed how much all things 
independent of affection had deceived them, and no longer 
exacting so much from love, they felt its real importance. 
Ahl why do all of us lose so many years in searching after 
happiness, but never inquiring into its nature? We are 
like one who collects the books of a thousand tongues, 
and knowing not their language, wonders why they do not 
delight him ! 

But still athwart the mind of Constance one dark image 
would ever and anon obtrude itself ; the solitary and mys- 
tic Lucilla, with her erring brain and forlorn fortunes, was 
not even in happiness to be forgotten. There were times, 
too, in that short journey, when she felt the tale of her 
interview with that unhappy being rise to her lips ; but 
ever when she looked on the countenance of Godolphin, 
beaming with more heartfelt and homeboru gladness than 
she had seen for years, she could not bear the thought of 
seeing it darkened by the pain her story would inflict; 
and she shrank from embittering moments so precious t<? 
her heart. 

All her endeavors to discover Lucilla had been in vain ; 
but an unquiet presentiment that at any moment that dis- 
covery might be made, perhaps in the presence of Godol- 
phin, constantly haunted her, and she even now looked 


godolphin. 


449 


painfully forth at each inn where they changed horses, lest 
the sad, stern features of the soothsayer should appear, 
and break that spell of happy quiet which now lay over 
the spirit of Godolphin. * 

It was toward the evening that their carriage slowly 
wound np a steep and long ascent. The sun yet wanted 
an hour to its setting; and at their right, its slant and 
mellowed beams fell over rich fields, green with the pro- 
digal luxuriance of June, and intersected by hedges from 
which, proud and frequent, the oak and elm threw forth 
their lengthened shadows. On their left, the grass less 
fertile, and the spaces less inclosed, were whitened with 
flocks of sheep ; and far and soft came the bleating of the 
lambs upon their ear. They saw not the shepherd nor 
any living form; but from between the thicker groups of 
trees, the chimneys of peaceful cottages peered forth, and 
gave to the pastoral serenity of the scene that still and 
tranquil aspect of life which alone suited it. The busy 
wheel in the heart of Constance was at rest, and Godol- 
pliin’s soul, steeped in the luxury of the present hour, felt 
that delicious happiness which would be heaven could it 
outlive the hour. 

“My Constance,” whispered he, “why, since we return 
last to these scenes, why should we ever leave them ? 
Amid them let us recall our youth !” Constanee sighed, 
but with pleasure, and pressed Godolphin’s hand to her 
lips 

And now they had gained the hill, a sudden color flushed 
over Godolphin’s cheek. 

38* 2d 


450 


GODOLPHIN. 


“ Surely,” said he, “ I remember this view. Yonder 
valley I This is not the road to Wendover Castle ; this, — 
my father’s home !— the same, and not the same !” 

Yes ! Below, basking in the western light, lay the cot- 
tage in which Godolphin’s childhood had been passed. 
There was the stream rippling merrily ; there the broken 
and fern-clad turf with “its old hereditary trees;” but 
the ruins 1 — the shattered arch, the mouldering tower, 
were left indeed— but new arches, new turrets had arisen, 
and so dextrously blended with the whole that Godolphin 
might have fancied the hall of his forefathers restored — 
not indeed in the same vast proportions and cumbrous 
grandeur as of old, but still alike in shape and outline, 
and such even in size as would have contented the proud 
heart of its last owner. Godolphin’s eyes turned inquir- 
ingly to Constance. 

“ It should have been more consistent with its ancient 
dimensions,” said she; “but then it would have taken 
half our lives to have built it.” 

“ But this must have been the work of years.” 

“ It was.” 

“And your work, Constance ?” 

“ For you.” 

“And it was for this that you hesitated when I askjd 
you to consent to raising the money for the purchase of 
Lord ’s collection ?” 

“Yes; — am I forgiven 

“ Dearest Constance,” said Godolphin, flinging his arms 
around her, “how have I wronged you! During those 


GODOLPHIN. 


451 


very years, then, of our estrangement — during those very 
years in which I thought you indifferent, you were silently 
preparing this noble revenge on the injury I did you. 
Why, why did I not know this before ? Why did you not 
save us both from so long a misunderstanding of each 
other ?” 

“Dearest Percy, I was to blame; but I always looked 
to this hour as to a pleasure of which I could not bear to 
rob myself. I always fancied that when this task was 
finished, and you could witness it, you would feel how 
uppermost you always were in my thoughts, and forgive 
me many faults from that consideration. I knew that I 
was executing your father’s great wish ; I knew that you 
always, although unconsciously perhaps, sympathized in 
that wish. I only grieve that, as yet, it has been executed 
so imperfectly.” 

“But how,” continued Godolphin, gazing on the new 
pile as they now neared the entrance, “how was it this 
never reached my ears through other quarters ?” 

“But it did, Percy; don’t you remember our country 
neighbor, Dartmour, complimenting you on your intended 
improvements, and you fancied it was irony, and turned 
your back on the discomfited squire ?” 

. They now drove under the gates surmounted with Go- 
dolphin’s arms ; and in a few minutes more, they were 
within the renovated halls of the Priory. 

Perhaps it was impossible for Constance to have more 
sensibly touched and flattered Godolphin than by this sur- 
prise; it affected him far more than the political conces- 


452 


GODOLPHIN. 


sion which to her had been so profound a sacrifice ; for his 
early poverty had produced in him somewhat of that 
ancestral pride which the poor only can gracefully wear; 
and although the tie between his father and himself had 
not possessed much endearment, yet he had often, with the 
generosity that belonged to him, regretted that his parent 
had not survived to share in his present wealth, and to 
devote some portion of it to the realization of those wishes 
which he had never been permitted to consummate. Go- 
dolphin, too, was precisely of a nature to appreciate the 
delicacy of Constance’s conduct, and to be deeply pene- 
trated by the thought that, while he was following a career 
so separate from hers, she, in the midst of all her ambi- 
tious projects, could pause to labor, unthanked and in 
concealment, for the delight of this hour’s gratification to 
him : the delicacy and the forethought affected him the 
more, because they made not a part of the ordinary char- 
acter of the high and absorbed ambition of Constance. 
He did not thank her much by words, but his looks be- 
trayed all he felt, and Constance was overpaid. 

Although the new portion of the building was neces- 
sarily not extensive, yet each chamber was of those grand 
proportions which suited the magnificent taste of Godol- 
phin, and harmonized with the ancient ruins. Constance 
had shown her tact by leaving the ruins themselves (which 
it was profane to touch) unrestored ; but so artfully were 
those connected with the modern addition, and thence with 
the apartments in the cottage, which she had not scrupled 
to remodel, that an effect was produced from the whole 


godolpiiin. 


453 


far more splendid than many Gothic buildings of greater 
extent and higher pretensions can afford. Godolphin warn 
dered delightedly over the whole, charmed with the taste 
and judgment which presided over even the nicest arrange- 
ment. 

“Why, where,” said he, struck with the accurate anti- 
quity of some of the details, “where learned you all these 
minutiae ? You are as wise as Hope himself upon cornices 
and tables.” 

X was forced to leave these things to others,” answered 
Constance ; ‘ but 1 took care that they possessed the neces- 
sary science.” 

The night was exceedingly beautiful, and they walked 
forth under the summer moon among those grounds in 
which Constance had first seen Godolphin. They stood 
by the very rivulet — they paused at the very spot 1 On 
the murmuring bosom of the wave floated many a water- 
flower; and now and then a sudden splash, a sudden circle 
in the shallow stream, denoted the leap of the river tyrant 
on his prey. There was a universal odor in the soft air; 
that delicate, that ineffable fragrance belonging to those 
midsummer nights which the rich English poetry might 
well people with Oberon and his fairies; the bat wheeled 
in many a ring along the air ; but the gentle light bathed 
all things, and robbed his wanderings of the gloomier as- 
sociations that belong to them; and ever and ever the 
busy moth darted to and fro among the flowers, or misled 
upward by the stars whose beam allured it, wandered, like 
Desire after happiness, in search of that light it might 


454 


GODOLPHIN. 


never reach. And those stars still, with their soft, un- 
speakable eyes of love, looked down upon Godolphin as of 
old, when, by the Italian lake, he roved with her for whom 
he had become the world itself. No, not now, nor ever, 
could he gaze upon those wan, mysterious orbs, and not 
feel the pang that reminded him of Lucilla I Between 
them and her was an affinity which his imagination could 
not sever. All whom we have loved have something in 
nature especially devoted to their memory; a peculiar 
flower, a breath of air, a leaf, a tone. What love is with- 
out some such association, 

“Striking the electric chain wherewith we’re bound?” 

But the dim, and shadowy, and solemn stars were in- 
deed meet remembrancers of Volktraan’s wild daughter; 
and so intimately was their light connected in Godolphin’s 
breast with that one image, that their very softness had, 
to his eyes, something fearful and menacing — although as 
in sadness, not in anger. 


CHAPTER LXYII. 

THE FULL RENEWAL OF LOVE — HAPPINESS PRODUCES FEAR, “AND 
IN TO-DAY ALREADY WALKS TO-MORROW.” 

On, First Love ! well sang the gay minstrel of France, 
that we return again and again to thee. As the earth re- 
turns to its spring, and is green once more, we go back to 
the life of life, and forget the seasons that have rolled be- 


GODOLPHIN. 


455 


tween ! Whether it wa^ — perhaps so — that in the minds 
of both was a feeling thct their present state was not 
fated to endure ; whether they felt, in the deep calm they 
enjoyed, that the storm was already at hand ; whether this 
was the truth I know not; but certain it is, that during 
the short time they remained at Godolphin Priory, pre- 
vious to their earthly separation, Constance and Godol- 
phin were rather like lovers for the first time united, than 
like those who have dragged on the chain for years. Their 
perfect solitude, the absence of all intrusion, so unlike the 
life they had long passed, renewed all that charm, that 
rapture in each other’s society, which belong to the first 
youth of love. True, that this could not have endured 
long; but Fate suffered it to endure to the last of that 
tether which remained to their union. Constance was not 
again doomed to the severe and grating shock which the 
sense of estrangement brings to a woman’s heart; she was 
sensible that Godolphin was never so entirely, so passion- 
ately her own, as toward the close of their mortal con- 
nection. Everything around them breathed of their first 
love. This was that home of Godolphin’s to which, from 
the splendid halls of Wendover, the young soul of the 
proud orphan had so often and so mournfully flown with a 
yearning and wistful interest : this was that spot in which 
he, awaking from the fever of the world, had fed his first 
dreams of her. The scene, the solitude, was as a bath to 
their love: it braced, it freshened, it revived its tone. 
They wandered, they road, they thought together: the air 
of the spot was an intoxication. The world around and 


456 


GODOLPIIIN. 


without was agitated; they felt it not: the breakers of the 
great deep died in murmurs on their ear. Ambition lulled 
its voice to Constance; Godolphin had realized his visions 
of the ideal. Time had dimmed their young beauty, but 
their eyes saw it not; they were young, they were all 
beautiful, to each other. 

And Constance hung on the steps of her lover — still let 
that name be his ! She could not bear to lose him for a 
moment: a vague indistinctness of fear seized her if she 
saw him not. Again and again, in the slumbers of the 
night, she stretched forth her arms to feel that he was 
near; all her pride, her coldness seemed gone, as by a 
spell; she loved as the softest, the fondest, love. Are we, 
0 Ruler of the future ! imbued with the half-felt spirit of 
prophecy as the hour of evil approaches — the great, 
the fierce, the irremediable evil of a life ? In this depth 
and intensity of their renewed passion, was there not some- 
thing preternatural? Did they not tremble as they loved ? 
They were on a spot to which the dark waters were slowly 
gathering ; they clung to the Hour, for Eternity was low- 
ering round. 

It was one evening that a foreboding emotion of this 
kind weighed heavily on Constance. She pressed Godol- 
phin’s hand in hers, and when he returned the pressure, 
she threw herself on his neck and burst into tears. Go- 
dolphin was alarmed ; he covered her cheek with kisses, 
ne sought the cause of her emotion. 

“ There is no cause,” answered Constance, recovering 
herself, but speaking in a faltering voice, “only I feel the 


GODOLPHIN. 


457 


\ 

impossibility that this happiness can last; its excess makes 
me shudder.” 

As she spoke, the wind rose and swept mourningly over 
the large leaves of the chestnut tree beneath which they 
stood : the serene stillness of the evening seemed gone; an 
unquiet and melancholy spirit was loosened abroad, and 
the chill of the sudden change which is so frequent to our 
climate, came piercingly upon them. Godolphin was 
silent for some moments, for the thought found a sympathy 
in his own. 

“And is it truly so ?” he said at last ; “ is there really 
to be no permanent happiness for us below? Is pain 
always to tread the heels of pleasure ? Are we never to 
say the harbor is reached and we are safe ? No, my Con- 
stance,” he added, warming into the sanguine vein that 
traversed even his most desponding moods, “no! let us 
not cherish this dark belief ; there is no experience for the 
future ; one hour lies to the next : if what has been seem 
thus checkered, it is no type of what may be. We have 
discovered in each other that world that was long lost to 
our eyes ; we cannot lose it again, death only can sepa- 
rate us !” 

“Ah, death /” said Constance, shuddering. 

“ Do not recoil at that word, my Constance, for we are 
yet in the noon of life ; why bring, like the Egyptian, the 
specter to the feast ? And, after all, if death come while 
we thus love, it is better than change and time — better 
than custom which palls — better than age which chills. 
Ohl” continued Godolphin, passionately, “oh! if this 
39 


458 


GODOLPHIN. 


narrow shoal and sand of time be but a breathing-spot in 
the great heritage of immortality, why cheat ourselves 
with words so vague as life and death 1 What is the dif- 
ference? At most, the entrance in and the departure 
from one scene in our wide career. How many scenes are 
left to us ! We do but hasten our journey, not close it 
Let us believe this, Constance, and cast from us all fear of 
our disunion.” 

As he spoke, Constance’s eyes were fixed upon his face, 
and the deep calm that reigned there sank into her soul 
and silenced its murmurs. The thought of futurity is that 
which Godolphin (because it is so with all idealists) must 
have revolved with the most frequent fervor; but it was a 
thought which he so rarely touched upon, that it was the 
first and only time Constance ever heard it breathed from 
his lips. 

They turned into the house; and the mark is still in 
that page of the volume which they read, where the melo- 
dious accents of Godolphin died upon the heart of Con- 
stance. Can she ever turn to it again ? 


/ 


GODOLPHIN. 


459 


CHAPTER LXVIII. 

THE LAST CONVERSATION BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE 

HIS THOUGHTS AND SOLITARY WALK AMIDST THB SCENES OF HIS 
YOUTH— THE LETTER— THE DEPARTURE. 

They had denied themselves to all the visitors who had 
attacked the Priory; but on their first arrival, they had 
deemed it necessary to conciliate their neighbors by con- 
centrating into one formal act of hospitality all those 
social courtesies which they could not persuade themselves 
to relinquish their solitude in order singly to perform. 
Accordingly, a day had been fixed for one grand fete at 
the Priory ; it was to follow close on the election, and be 
considered as in honor of that event. The evening for 
this gala succeeded that which I have recorded in the last 
chapter. It was with great reluctance that they prepared 
themselves to greet this sole interruption of their seclu- 
sion; and they laughed, although they did not laugh cor- 
dially, at the serious annoyance which the giving a ball 
was for the first time to occasion to persons who had been 
giving balls for a succession of years. 

The day was remarkably still and close; the sun had 
not once pierced through the dull atmosphere, which was 
charged with the yet silent but gathering thunder ; and as 
the evening came on, the sullen tokens of an approaching 
Storm became more and more loweringly pronounced. 


460 


GODOLPHIN. 


“We shall not, I fear, have propitious weather for our 
festival to-night,” said Godolphin ; “ but after a general 
election, people’s nerves are tolerably hardened : what are 
the petty fret and tumult of nature, lastiug but an hour, to 
the angry and everlasting passions of men ?” 

“A profound deduction from a wet night, dear Percy/’ 
said Constance, smiling. 

“ Like our friend C ,” rejoined Godolphin, in the 

same vein, “I can philosophize on the putting on one’s 
gloves, you know:” and therewith their conversation 
flowed into a vein singularly contrasted with the char- 
acter of the coming events. Time fled on as they were 
thus engaged until Constance started up, surprised at the 
lateness of the hour, to attend the duties of the toilet. 

“Wear this, dearest,” said Godolphin, taking a rose 
from a flower-stand by the window, “in memory of that 
ball at Wendover Castle, which, although itself passed 
bitterly enough for me, has yet left so many happy recol- 
lections.” Constance put the rose into her bosom; its 
leaves were then all fresh and brilliant — so were her pros- 
pects for the future. He kissed her forehead as they 
parted ; — they parted for the last time. 

Godolphin, left alone, turned to the window, which, 
opening to the ground, invited him forth among the flowers 
that studded the grass-plots which sloped away to the dark 
and unwaving trees that girded the lawn. That pause of 
nature which precedes a storm ever had a peculiar attrac- 
tion to his mind ; and instinctively he sauntered from the 
house, wrapped in the dreaming, half-developed thought 


GODOLPHIN. 


461 


which belonged to his temperament. Mechanically he 
strayed on until he found himself beside the still lake 
which the hollows of the dismantled park imbedded. 
There he paused, gazing unconsciously on the gloomy 
shadows which fell from the arches of the Priory and the 
tall trees around. Not a ripple stirred the broad expanse 
of waters ; the birds had gone to rest ; no sound, save the 
voice of the distant brook that fed the lake beside which, 
on the first night of his return to his ancestral home, he 
had wandered with Constance, broke the universal silence. 
That voice was never mute. All else might be dumb; 
but that living stream, rushing through its rocky bed, 
stilled not its repining music. Like the soul of the land- 
scape is the gush of a fresh stream ; it knows no sleep, no 
pause ; it works forever — the life, the cause of life, to all 
around. The great frame of nature may repose, but the 
spirit of the waters rests not for a moment. As the soul 
of the landscape is the soul of man, in our deepest slum- 
bers its course glides on, and works unsilent, unslumber- 
ing, through its destined channel. 

With slow step and folded arms Godolphin moved 
along. The well - remembered scenes of his childhood 
were all before him ; the wild verdure of the fern, the 
broken ground, with its thousand mimic mounts and val- 
leys, the deep dell overgrown with matted shrubs and dark 
as a wizard’s cave ; the remains of many a stately vista, 
where the tender green of the lime showed soft, even in 
that dusky light, beneath the richer leaves of the chestnut; 

39 * 


462 


GODOLPHIN. 


all was familiar and home-breathing to his mind. Frag- 
ments of boyish verse, forgotten for years, rose hauntingly 
to his remembrance, telling of wild thoughts, unsatisfied 
dreams, disappointed hopes. 

“But I am happy at last,” said he aloud; “yes, happy. 
I have passed that bridge of life which divides us from the 
follies of youth; and better prospects, and nobler desires, 
extend before me. What a world of wisdom in that one 
saying of Radclyffe’s, ‘ Benevolence is the sole cure to 
idealism;’ to live for others draws us from demanding 
miracles for ourselves. What duty as yet have I fulfilled ? 
I renounced ambition as unwise, and with it I renounced 
wisdom itself. I lived for pleasure — I lived the life of dis- 
appointment. Without one vicious disposition, I have 
fallen into a hundred vices ; I have never been actively 
selfish, yet always selfish. I nursed high thoughts — for 
what end ? A poet in heart, a voluptuary in life. If mine 
own interest came into clear collision with that of another, 
mine I would have sacrificed, but I never asked if the 
whole course of my existence was not that of a war with 
the universal interest. Too thoughtful to be without a 
leading principle in life, the one principle I adopted has 
been one error. I have tasted all that imagination can 
give to earthly possession, — youth, health, liberty, knowl- 
edge, love, luxury, pomp. Woman was my first passion, 
. — what woman have I wooed in vain ? I imagined that 
my career hung upon Constance’s breath — Constance loved 
and refused me. I attributed my errors to that refusal ; 
Constance became mine — how have I retrieved them ? A 


G0D0LPH1N. 


463 


Vague, a dim, an unconfessed remorse has pursued me in 
the memory of Lucilla ; yet, why not have redeemed that 
fault to her by good to others ? What is penitence not 
put into action, but the great fallacy in morals ? A sin to 
one, if irremediable, can only be compensated by a virtue 
to some one else. Yet was I to blame in my conduct to 
Lucilla ? Why should conscience so haunt me at that 
name? Did I not fly her? Was it not herself who com- 
pelled our union ? Did I not cherish, respect, honor, for- 
be.ar with her, more than I have since with my wedded 
Constance? Did I not resolve to renounce Constance 
herself, when most loved, for Lucilla’s sake alone? Who 
prevented that sacrifice — who deserted me — who carved 
out her own separate life ? — Lucilla herself. No, so far, 
my sin is light. But ought I not to have left all things to 
follow her, to discover her, to force upon her an independ- 
ence from want, or possibly from crime ? Ah, there was 
my sin, and the sin of my nature ; the sin, too, of the chil- 
dren of the world — passive sin. I could sacrifice my hap- 
piness, but not my indolence ; I was not ungenerous, I was 
inert. But is it too late ? Can I not yet search, discover 
her, and remove from my mind the anxious burden which 
her remembrance imposes on it ? For, oh, one thought of 
remorse linked with the being who has loved us, is more 
intolerable to the conscience than the gravest crime 1” 
Muttering such thoughts, Godolphin strayed on until 
the deepening night suddenly recalled his attention to the 
lateness of the hour. He turned to the house, and entered 
his own apartment. Several of the guests had already 



464 


GODOLPHIN. 


come. Godolphin was yet dressing, when a servant 
knocked at the door and presented him a note. 

“Lay it on the table,” said he to the valet; “it is prob- 
ably some excuse about the ball.” 

“ Sir,” said the servant, “ a lad has just brought it from 
S * * naming a village about four miles distant; “and 
says he is to wait for an answer. He was ordered to ride 
as fast as possible.” 

With some impatience Godolphin took up the note ; but 
the moment his eye rested on the writing, it fell from his 
hands; his cheek, his lips, grew as white as death; his 
heart seemed to refuse its functions; it was literally as if 
life stood still for a moment, as by the force of a sudden 
poison. With a strong effort he recovered himself, tore 
open the note, and read as follows : 

“Percy Godolphin, the hour has arrived — once more we 

shall meet. I summon you, fair love, to that meeting 

the bed of death. Come ! 

“Lucilla Volktman.” 

“Don’t alarm the countess,” said Godolphin to his ser- 
vant, in a very low, calm voice; “bring my horse to the 
postern, and send the bearer of this note to me.” 

The messenger appeared— a rough country lad, of about 
eighteen or twenty. 

“You brought this note?” 

“ I did, your honor.” 

“ From whom ?” 

“Why, a sort of a strange lady, as is lying at the 


GODOLPHIN. 


46 !) 


•Chequers,’ and not expected to live.' She be mortal bad, 
sir, and do run on awesome.” 

Godolphin pressed his hands convulsively together. 

“And how long has she been there ?” 

“ She only came about two hours since, sir; she came 
in a chaise, sir, and was taken so ill, that we sent for the 
doctor directly. He says she can’t get over the night.” 

Godolphin walked to and fro, without trusting himself 
to speak, for some minutes. The boy stood by the door, 
pulling about his hat, and wondering, and staring, and 
thoroughly stupid. 

“ Did she come alone ?” 

“Eh, your honor?” 

“Was no one with her ?” 

“ Oh, yes I a little nigger girl : she it was sent me with 
the letter.” 

“The horse is ready, sir,” said the servant; “but had 
you not better have the carriage brought out ? It looks 
very black; it must rain shortly, sir; and the ford be- 
tween this and S * * * is dangerous to cross in so dark a 
night.” 

“Peace!” cried Godolphin, with flashing eyes, and a 
low, convulsive laugh. “Shall I ride to that death-bed 
at my ease and leisure ?” 

He strode rapidly down the stairs, and reached the small 
postern door: it was a part of the old building: one of 
the grooms held his impatient horse — the swiftest in his 
splendid stud ; and the dim but flaring light, held by an- 
other of the servitors, streamed against the dull heavens 
39* 2E 


466 


GODOLPHIN. 


and the imperfectly seen and frowning ruins of the ancient 
pile. 

Godolphin, unconscious of all around, and muttering to 
himself, leaped on his steed : the fire glinted from the 
courser’s hoofs; and thus the last lord of that knightly 
race bade farewell to his father’s halls. Those words 
which he had muttered, and which his favorite servant 
caught and superstitiously remembered, were the words in 
Lucilla’s note — “The hour has arrived /” 


CHAPTER THE LAST. 

A DREAD MEETING — THE STORM — THE CATASTROPHE. 

On the humble pallet of the village inn lay the broken 
form of the astrologer’s expiring daughter. The surgeon 
of the place sat by the bedside, dismayed and terrified, 
despite his hardened vocation, by the wild words and 
ghastly shrieks that ever and anon burst from the lips of 
the dying woman. The words were, indeed, uttered in a 
foreign tongue unfamiliar to the leech; a language not 
ordinarily suited to inspire terror ; the language of love, 
and poetry, and music, the language of the sweet South. 
But, uttered in that voice where the passions of the soul 
still wrestled against the gathering weakness of the frame, 
the soft syllables sounded harsh and fearful ; and the dis- 
heveled locks of the sufferer — the wandering fire of the 


GODOLPIIIN. 


461 


sunken eyes — the distorted gestures of the thin, trans- 
parent arms, gave fierce effect to the unknown words, and 
betrayed the dark strength of the delirium which raged 
upon her. 

One wretched light on the rude table opposite the bed 
broke the gloom of the mean chamber; and across the 
window flashed the first lightnings of the storm about to 
break. By the other side of the bed sat, mute, watchful, 
tearless, the Moorish girl, who was Lucilla’s sole attend- 
ant— her eyes fixed on the sufferer with faithful, unweary- 
ing love ; her ears listening, with all the quick sense of her 
race, to catch, amid the growing noises of the storm, and 
the tread of hurrying steps below, the expected sound of 
the hoofs that should herald Godolphin’s approach. 

Suddenly, as if exhausted by the paroxysm of her dis- 
ease, Lucilla’s voice sank into silence ; and she lay so still, 
so motionless, that, but for the faint and wavering pulse 
of the hand, which the surgeon was now suffered to hold, 
they might have believfed the tortured spirit was already 
released. This torpor lasted for some minutes, when, 
raising herself up, as a bright gleam of intelligence stole 
over the hollow cheeks, Lucilla put her finger to her lips, 
smiled, and said, in a low, clear voice, “ Hark ! he comes !” 

The Moor crept across the chamber, and opening the 
door, stood there in a listening attitude. She, as yet, 
heard not the tread of the speeding charger ; — a moment, 
and it smote her ear; a moment more it halted by the 
inn door: the snort of the panting horse — the rush of 
steps— Percy Godolphin was in the room— was by the bed- 


46 8 


GODOLPIIIN. 


side — the poor sufferer was in his arms; and softened, 
thrilled, overpowered, Lucilla resigned herself to that dear 
caress: she drank in the sobs of his choked voice; she felt 
still, as in happier days, burning into her heart the magic 
of his kisses. One instant of youth, of love, of hope, 
broke into that desolate and fearful hour, and silent and 
scarcely conscious tears gushed from her aching eyes, and 
laved, as it were, the burden and the agony from her 
heart. 

The Moor traversed the room, and, laying one hand on 
the surgeon’s shoulder, pointed to the door. Lucilla and 
Godolphin were alone. 

‘‘Oh!” said he, at last finding voice, “is it thus — thus 
we meet ? But say not that you are dying, Lucilla ! have 
mercy, mercy upon your betrayer, your ” 

Here he could utter no more ; he sank beside her, cover- 
ing his face with his hands, and sobbing bitterly. 

The momentary lucid interval for Lucilla had passed 
away; the maniac rapture returned, although in a mild 
and solemn shape. 

“Blame not yourself,” said she, earnestly; “the re- 
morseless stars are the sole betrayers: yet, bright and 
lovely as they once seemed when they assured me of a 
bond between thee and me, I could not dream that their 
still and shining lore could forebode such gloomy truths. 
Oh, Percy ! since we parted, the earth has not been as 
the earth to me : the Natural has left my life ; a weird 
and roving spirit has entered my breast, and filled my 
brain, and possessed my thoughts, and moved every spring 


godolphin. 


4fi 9 

of my existence : the sun and the air, the green herb, the 
Jrebnness and glory of the world, have been covered with 
a mist in which only dim shapes of dread were shadowed 
forth. But thou, my love, on whose breast I have dreamed 
such blessed dreams, wert not to blame. No ! the power 
that crushes we cannot accuse : the heavens are above the 
reach of our reproach ; they smile upon our agony ; they 
bid the seasons roll on, unmoved and unsympathizing, 
above our broken hearts. And what has been my course 
since your last kiss on these dying lips ? Godolphin,”— 
ana here Lucilla drew herself apart from him, and writhed, 
as with some bitter memory,— “these lips have felt other 
kisses, and these ears have drunk unhallowed sounds, and 
wild revelry and wilder passion have made me laugh over 
the sepulcher of my soul. But I am a poor creature j poor, 
poor— mad, Percy— mad— they tell me so 1” Then, in the 
sudden changes incident to her disease, Lucilla continued 
— “I saw your bride, Percy, when you bore her from 
Kome, and the wheels of your bridal carriage swept over 
me, for I flung myself in their way ; but they scathed me 
not: the bright demons above ordained otherwise, and I 
wandered over the world ; but you shall know not,” added 
Lucilla, with a laugh of dreadful levity, “ whither or with 
whom, for we must have concealments, my love, as you 
will confess; and I strove to forget you, and my brain sank 
in the effort. I felt my frame withering, and they told me 
my doom was fixed, and I resolved to come to England 
and look on my first love once more: so I came, and J 
40 


470 


godolphin. 


saw you, Godolphin ; and I knew, by the wrinkles in yoiii 
brow and the musing thought in your eye, tnat your proud 
lot had not brought you content. And then there came to 
me a stately shape, and I knew it for her for whom you had 
deserted me : she told me, as you tell me, to live, to forget 
the past. Mockery, mockery ! But my heart is proud as 
hers, Percy, and I would not stoop to the kindness of a 
triumphant rival; and I fled, what matters it whither? 
But listen, Percy, listen ; my woes had made me wise in 
that science which is not of earth, ( and I knew that you 
and I must meet once more, and that that meeting would 
be in this hour; and I counted, minute by minute, with a 
savage gladness, the days that were to bring on this inter- 
view and my death !” Then raising her voice into a wild 
shriek — “ Beware, beware, Percy ! — the rush of waters is 
on my ear — the splash, the gurgle 1 — Beware ! — your last 
hour, also, is at hand 1” 

Prom the moment in which she uttered these words. 
Lucilia relapsed into her former frantic paroxysms. Shriek 
followed shriek; she appeared to know none around her, 
not even Godolphin. With throes and agony the soul 
seemed to wrench itself from the frame. The hours swept 

on midnight came — .clear and distinct the voice of the 

clock below reached that chamber. 

“ Hush F cried Lucilia, starting. “ Hush 1” and just ai 
that moment, through the window opposite, the huge clouds, 
breaxing in one spot, discovered high and far above them a 
solitary star. 

“ Thine, thine, Godolphin 1” she shrieked forth, poiLt- 


godolphin. 


471 


li-g to the lonely orb; “it summons thee farewell, but 
not for long !” 

****** 

****** 

* * * * * ' * 

The Moor rushed forward with a loud cry ; she placed 
her hand on Lucilla’s bosom ; the heart was still, the breath 
was gone, the fire had vanished from the ashes: that 
strange, unearthly spirit was perhaps with the stars for 
whose mysteries it had so vainly yearned. 

Down fell the black rain in torrents ; and far from the 
mountains you might hear the rushing of the swollen 
streams, as they poured into the bosom of the valleys. 
The sullen, continued mass of cloud was broken, and the 
vapors hurried fast and lowering over the heavens, leaving 
now and then a star to glitter forth ere again “the jaws of 
darkness did devour it up.” At the lower verge of the 
horizon the lightning flashed fierce, but at lingering in- 
tervals ; the trees rocked and groaned beneath the rains 
and storm; and immediately above the bowed head of a 
solitary horseman broke the thunder that, amid the whirl 
of his own emotions, he scarcely heard. 

Beside a stream, which the rains had already swelled, 
was a gipsy encampment ; and as some of the dusky itin- 
erants, waiting perhaps the return of a part of their band 
from a predatory excursion, cowered over the flickering 
fires in their tent, they perceived the horseman rapidly ap- 
proaching the stream. 

“ See to yon gentry cove,” cried one of the band ; “ ’tis 


472 


GODOLPHIN. 


the same we saw in the forenight crossing the ford above. 
He has taken a short cut, the buzzard ! and will have to 
go round again to the ford ; a precious time to be galli- 
vanting about l” 

“Pish!” said an old hag; “ I love to see the proud 
ones tasting the bitter wind and rain as we bears alway ; 
’tis but a mile longer round to the ford. I wish it was 
twenty. ” 

“Hallo!” cried the first speaker; “the fool takes to 
the water. He’ll be drowned ; the banks are too high and 
rough to land man or horse yonder. Hallo !” and with 
that painful sympathy which the hardest feel at the immi- 
nent peril of another when immediately subjected to their 
eyes, the gipsy ran forth into the pelting storm, shouting 
to the traveler to halt. For one moment Godolphin’s 
steed still shrunk back from the rushing tide : deep dark- 
ness was over the water; and the horseman saw not the 
height of the opposite banks. The shout of the gipsy 
sounded to his ear like the cry of the dead whom he had 
left: he dashed his heels into the sides of the reluctant 
horse, and w r as in the stream. 

“Light — light the torches!” cried the gipsy; and in a 
few moments the banks were illumined with many a brand 
from the fire, which the rain, however, almost instantly ex- 
tinguished ; yet, by that momentary light, they saw the 
noble animal breasting the waters, and perceived that Go- 
dolphin, discovering by the depth his mistake, had already 
turned the horse’s head in the direction of the ford : they 
could see no more, but they shouted to Godolphin to turn 


GODOLPHIN. 


473 


back to the place from which he had plunged ; and, in a 
few minutes afterward, they heard, several yards above, 
the horse clambering up the rugged banks, which there 
were steep and high, and crushing the boughs that clothed 
the ascent. They thought, at the same time, that they dis- 
tinguished also the splash of a heavy substance in the 
waves : but they fancied it some detached fragment of 
earth or stone, and turned to their tent in the belief that 
the daring rider had escaped the peril he had so madly in- 
curred. That night the riderless steed of Godolphin 
arrived at the porch of the Priory, where Constance, 
alarmed, pale, breathless, stood exposed to the storm, 
awaiting the return of Godolphin, or the messengers she 
had dispatched in search of him. 

-A.t daybreak his corpse was found by the shallows of 
the ford ; and the mark of violence across the temples, as 
of some blow, led them to guess that in scaling the banks 
his head had struck against one of the tossing boughs that 
overhung them, and the blow had precipitated him into 
the waters. 


LETTER FROM CONSTANCE, COUNTESS OF ERPINGHAM, 
TO . 

“ August , 1832 . 

“ I have read the work you have so kindly compiled 
from the papers transmitted to your care, and from your 
own intimate knowledge of those to whom they relate;— 
you have in much fulfilled my wishes with singular suc- 
cess. On the one hand, I have been anxious that a His- 


4t4 


GODOLPIIIN. 


tory should be given to the world, from which lessons so 
deep, and, I firmly believe, salutary, may be generally de- 
rived: on the other hand, I have been anxious that it 
should be clothed in such disguises, that the names, of the 
real actors in the drama should be forever a secret. Both 
these objects you have attained. It is impossible, I think, 
for any one to read the book about to be published, with- 
out being impressed with the truth of the moral it is in- 
tended to convey, and without seeing, by a thousand infal- 
lible signs, that its spring and its general course have flowed 
from reality and not fiction. Yet have you, by a few slight 
alterations and additions, managed to effect that conceal- 
ment of names and persons, which is due no less to the 
living than to the memory of the dead. 

“ So far I thank you from my heart : but in one point 
you have utterly failed. You have done no justice to the 
noble character you meant to delineate under the name of 
Godolphin ; you have drawn his likeness with a harsh and 
cruel pencil; you have enlarged on the few weaknesses he 
might have possessed, until you have made them the fore- 
ground of the portrait ; and his vivid generosity, his high 
honor, his brilliant intellect, the extraordinary stores of his 
mind, you have left in shadow. Oh, God 1 that for such a 
being such a destiny was reserved I and in the prime of 
life, just when his mind had awakened to a sense of its own 
powers and their legitimate objects ! What a fatal system 
of things, that could for thirty-seven years have led away, 
by the pursuits and dissipations of a life suited but to the 
beings he despised, a genius of such an order, a heart of 
such tender emotions !* But on this subject I cannot, can- 


** The reader will acquit me of the charge of injustice to Godol- 
phin’s character when he arrives at this sentence; it conveys ex- 
actly the impression that my delineation, faithful to truth, is 


GODOLPHIN. 


415 


not write. I must lay down the pen : to-morrow I will try 
and force myself to resume it. 

“Well, then, I say, you have not done justice to him. 
I beseech you to remodel that character, and atone to the 
memory of one, whom none ever saw but to admire, or 
knew but to love. 

“ Of me, — of me, the vain, the scheming, the proud, the 
unfeminine cherisher of bitter thoughts, of stern designs, — 
of me, on the other hand, how flattering is the picture you 
have drawn I In that flattery is my sure disguise ; there- 
fore, I will not ask you to shade it into the poor and un- 
lovely truth. But while, with agony and shame, I feel that 
you have rightly described that seeming neglectfulness of 
one no more, which sprang from the pride that believed 
itself neglected, you have not said enough — no, not one 
millionth part enough — of the real love that I constantly 
bore to him ; the only soft and redeeming portion of my 
nature. But who can know, who can describe what 
another feels ? Even I knew not what I felt, until death 
taught it me. 

“ Since I have read the whole book, one thought con- 
stantly haunts me — the strangeness that I should survive 
his loss ; that the stubborn strings of my heart have not 
been broken long since ; that I live, and live, too, amid the 
world ! Ay, but not one of the world ; with that con- 
sciousness I sustain myself in the petty and sterile career 
of life. Shut out, henceforth and forever, from all the ten- 
derer feelings that belong to my sex ; without mother, 
husband, child, or friend ; unloved and unloving, I sup- 
port myself by the belief that I have done the little suffered 


intended to convey — the influences of our actual world on the ideal 
and imaginative order of mind, when that mind is without the 
stimulus of pursuits at once practical and ennobling. 


476 


GODOLPHIN. 


to my sex in expediting the great change which is ad- 
vancing on the world ; and I cheer myself by the firm 
assurance that, sooner or later, a time must come, when 
those vast disparities in life which have been fatal, not to 
myself alone, but to all I have admired and loved ; which 
render the great heartless, and the lowly servile ; which 
make genius either an enemy to mankind or the victim to 
itself ; which debase the energetic purpose ; which fritter 
away the ennobling sentiment ; which cool the hea^t and 
fetter the capacities, and are favorable only to the general 
development of the Mediocre and the Lukewarm, shall, if 
never utterly removed, at least be smoothed away into 
more genial and unobstructed elements of society. Alas ! 
it is with an aching eye that we look abroad for the only 
solace, the only occupation of life, — Solitude at home, and 
Memory *at our hearth. ” 


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